Looks like a buff to DKs

RandomKodiak · September 2021

Not a DK main but looks like the love promised came through. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Vevvev · September 2021

Oh you're not wrong. So many wonderful and long requested changes in there!

Luke_Flamesword · September 2021

Yes, I'm so happy, because it's quite a good rework and I can't wait to test it on live!

MashmalloMan · September 2021

Not a DK main, but very happy to see! I'm blown away that ZOS actually released Stam Whip after 7+ years of requests even though the class already has a Stamina specific spammable that was introduced 2+ years ago.

Kind of odd that they didn't fix poop fist while making these big changes, the ultimate jack of all trades, master of none skill no one really enjoys.

xDeusEJRx · September 2021

The buffs look great, especially molten whip change. Though still would've preferred a stam whip instead of having to use the mag version cause now that means I won't be able to use mag for flames of oblivion/fossilize/wings since you'd need to conserve mag to use it as a spammable

Luke_Flamesword · September 2021

Personally I love the changes of whip with just highest stat scaling - it doesn't take any options from magdk and also spammable with magicka cost will make my BRETON stamdk more viable

Beavisaur13 · September 2021

There nice buffs, but once again wings gets passed over, and no fix for the clunky-ness of stone fist. Also I hope Elfbane doesn't cause ash cloud to keep draining mag, with its cost rework. Igneous weapons secondary effects are still lack luster, inhale should get a cost reduction and a little more damage.

Jamdarius · September 2021

Dragonknight

Ardent Flame:

Combustion passive: nice to see increase to recovery from burning/poison status applied, 500ms cooldown is fine.

Inferno: One morph gains major crit chance buff the other had previously and you can now launch 1 fireball more with Flames of Oblivion, I would honestly prefer increase in damage to both fireballs instead of 3rd fireball, and perhaps 2 healing balls for the other morph.

Whip is still not STAM resource, meaning even though it will scale with either of resources being higher it will see little use as spammable by STAM chars (fail). Our awesome heal in PvP through whip got possibly deleted however considering we can now do power lash without cooldown it might not be so bad, it needs testing... Still I feel 43% nerf is 2 much...
Nice to see Seething fury uptime being increased, problem is if somebody wants to keep it up and not spend it we still do not have other spammable in that build. FoO is losing in terms of power (unless used in 1vsX mobs/players).

World in Ruin: This passive now increases your damage done with Flame and Poison attacks by 2/5% - yup, that is a good change.

Earthen Heart

Ash Cloud:
This ability and its morphs now cost 378 Magicka every second while active [...] I just do not understand the intent here fully, while it is great it is not upfront cost, it should have just added any synergy (cleanse/minor/major buff rly anything) and lowered cost and it would be perfectly normal healing skill on par with Warden/Templar and anything else really.

These abilities now rank up in 1.1% healing or damage done per rank, rather than 1 second. Just why? You wanted to fix the DPS/Heal DK yet you lower it by freakin' lot ? I admit the mistake after calculating it (based on 2k DoT to make it simple) there is an increase in damage it deals, with keeping the change to 1,1% / sec it would be even more.

Eruption (morph): This morph’s initial hit damage now has a 10 second cooldown to prevent it from turning into an incredibly low costing AoE spammable. Basically I will be using mages guild one skill instead because this morph makes no sense, you miscast the morph by 1mm and you loose tons of DPS, magicka cost is still 2 high given that we get drained every second now it lasts.

Battle Roar: This passive now restores 25/50 Health, Magicka, and Stamina per Ultimate consumed, rather than 23/46 Health, Magicka, and Stamina per the Ultimate’s cost. Better than nothing I guess?

Nothing about Draconic Power skill tree (Green Blood that is actually good anyone? Inhale changes and morphs?), Stone Giant, Igneous Weapons or finally magicka scaled shield... Honestly I am mostly disappointed.

Ocelot9x · September 2021

The changes looks good, I'm looking forward for this weekend when I'll hit the pts

ZOS_Kevin · September 2021

Hi All! Thanks for the feedback here. Glad to see most are happy about the changes to DK. We are keeping track of additional feedback throughout this process, so feel free to note feedback. No promises on changes for this update, but we are keeping track for possible future use as well. Thanks, all.

GoopCooper69 · September 2021

Still not a "stam whip" as it still costs magicka to use. Will make some mag-oriented races more viable as a "stamdk" though

IronWooshu · September 2021

StamDK PVP meta, hard hitting dots with huge up front damage, a leap slam followed by a 3 stam whip to the face and if you're not dead, you're now off balanced lol.. Not looking forward to that but at least I can stealth out when I see Stam DK's.

MashmalloMan · September 2021

1 big change I think everyone can agree on here.. Make Whip's cost type dynamic too.

I know there is no precedence for this in the game currently, but there is no time like the present. You have dynamic scaling and then you have things like Soul Trap where the damage is physical or magicka, based on highest offensive stats. Anything is possible.

MashmalloMan · September 2021

Jamdarius wrote: »

Ash Cloud:
This ability and its morphs now cost 378 Magicka every second while active [...] I just do not understand the intent here fully, while it is great it is not upfront cost, it should have just added any synergy (cleanse/minor/major buff rly anything) and lowered cost and it would be perfectly normal healing skill on par with Warden/Templar and anything else really.

These abilities now rank up in 1.1% healing or damage done per rank, rather than 1 second. Just why? You wanted to fix the DPS/Heal DK yet you lower it by freakin' lot ?

Eruption (morph): This morph’s initial hit damage now has a 10 second cooldown to prevent it from turning into an incredibly low costing AoE spammable. Basically I will be using mages guild one skill instead because this morph makes no sense, you miscast the morph by 1mm and you loose tons of DPS, magicka cost is still 2 high given that we get drained every second now it lasts.

A few things I think you're missing here:

378 magicka a second is the standard for other class related 10 second ground dots, keep in mind, this is before cost reductions.
- Lightning Flood, Boneyard, and Shards cost 3780.
- For whatever reason, NBs Path and Warden's Winters Revenge get a slight cost decrease to 3510/3240 and an increase in dps.. in their original notes they stated why, but I can't find the patch.
The abillities now get more damage/healing as they rank up instead of duration. This is a buff, the duration as stated in the notes is now a base of 15s instead of 12s. (To get to 18s with the passive 20% duration).
The 10s cooldown on the burst damage is a bit punishing leaving no room for error in a rotation.. I'd prefer to see it removed entirely with the damage spread amongst the ticks of damage.

While some nice quality of life changes, I agree.. the skill needs more. I believe it should get a synergy or an aoe radius boost.

Nser · September 2021

Need outdated passive and skills rework or revamp for magicka Dragonknight

Jodynn · September 2021

Seemingly good changes, molten whip will probably fall off in PvE because Flame Lash will most likely out DPS it.
Molten whip will be slightly better for trash packs because you just spam engulfing anyways.. but it's not like you can skill morph swap during a trial, now can you?

Some pain points still exist, but glad to be moving in the right direction.

Would still love something interesting, like a combo.. Combat feels pretty flat in ESO right now. Dot up then spam spam spam.

Flames of oblivion to three targets instead of two is kind of.. yay but it would be better to just create an AoE on impact of around but I'll take every bit that I can get.

Lastly, I still want a flame atro

but honestly, give it to our sorc brothers and sisters, make them more than just lightning, their summons are kind of.. lame. (I mean really, a scamp? In end game? It's beyond lame to be max level and have a ... bloody... scamp.)

I'll test out the magDK changes and update this post at some point.

Mapekz · September 2021

These changes are very promising indeed! I hope the Combustion and Battle Roar changes (and Ash Cloud for PvE) are enough to resolve sustain issues as they are definitely more fun and engaging to "proc" than simply having a flat cost reduction/recovery boost passive.

There is still the "target is out of range" bug for Dragon Leap, very easy to trigger in Imperial City (with a reproducible workaround - go to a different district while having the bar equipped that doesn't have Dragon Leap on it) and the Petrify bug where you can't use it on targets (I submitted a bug report about this; it's a UI bug that blocks usage of the ability against a target that had previously been affected by the Unstoppable effect).

Also Flame Whip is still a Magicka-ability, so the jury is still out on whether "Stamina Whip" will be a thing. Maybe if you aren't casting many Magicka abilities, as a stamDK you can use this for an extra heal (Power Lash) or execute (Molten Whip)? But in that case you're better off with Vigor/Momentum or Reverse Slice/Whirling Blades. The only benefit really is that you don't waste your precious Stamina to do so.

Fennwitty · September 2021

Please do something about Poop Fist!

Otherwise known as "Stone Giant" or "Stonefist" in some obscure in-game documentation.

Feels terrible to use, it's confusing with "sometimes this is melee AOE, sometimes it's a ranged attack!" and still pretty expensive to be a spammable.

Honestly I'd prefer the companion Bastian's "Crag Smash" -- a nice, simple ranged attack. Keep Staggered or lower the cost, but I want to know what will happen when I press the button in the middle of a big laggy fight. Or remove the 10 second reset timer, or preserve the number of ticks like Grim Focus can when it falls off.

Many times I want the AOE but the current timer still has a second left, so I shoot something. Sometimes I want the ranged attack, but the timer fell off and now I do a power squat before having to press the skill again to actually fire a ranged attack.

LonePirate · September 2021

I suppose the Whip scaling with Max Stamina is a step in the right direction for Stam DKs but overall, these changes are underwhelming and are a pittance of what the class really needs.

That Immobilize condition for Flame Lash is absurd and needs to be removed as too many players cannot be immobilized in PVP making the skill worthless. Just give the skill the same proc chance as Crystal Fragments for Sorcerors. Or better yet, give DKs a skill like Executioner that hits hard against those under certain levels of health. If it’s good enough for the close combat of a 2H weapon, why isn’t it good enough for DKs?

Still nothing about a non-ultimate group stun for DKs like what Sorcs have with Streak. Why not change the useless 70% movement speed reduction in Ash Cloud to an AOE stun? Changing Inhale to be an AOE stun instead of a pointless AOE interrupt would have worked as well but why give DKs something helpful in their hand to hand dot based combat routine that seriously lacks the burst or healing needed in PVP nowadays.

I am still convinced nobody at ZOS ever plays a DK, especially a Mag DK, in PVP any more, not even @ZOS_Gilliam who used to be seen long ago running around Cyrodiil as a Mag DK. It’s all theorycrafting in Excel now without any actual practical investigation or gameplay behind the decisions with these changes.

BattleAxe · September 2021

A step in the right direction but I agree set the precedent and give whip dynamic cost scaling so it is viable for both mag and stam. If that is not possible adjust stone fist into a melee skill and do away with it being clunky to use

DreadDaedroth · September 2021

Bring back pre Elsweyr wings.

Jamdarius · September 2021

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Jamdarius wrote: »

Ash Cloud:
This ability and its morphs now cost 378 Magicka every second while active [...] I just do not understand the intent here fully, while it is great it is not upfront cost, it should have just added any synergy (cleanse/minor/major buff rly anything) and lowered cost and it would be perfectly normal healing skill on par with Warden/Templar and anything else really.

These abilities now rank up in 1.1% healing or damage done per rank, rather than 1 second. Just why? You wanted to fix the DPS/Heal DK yet you lower it by freakin' lot ?

Eruption (morph): This morph’s initial hit damage now has a 10 second cooldown to prevent it from turning into an incredibly low costing AoE spammable. Basically I will be using mages guild one skill instead because this morph makes no sense, you miscast the morph by 1mm and you loose tons of DPS, magicka cost is still 2 high given that we get drained every second now it lasts.

A few things I think you're missing here:
378 magicka a second is the standard for other class related 10 second ground dots, keep in mind, this is before cost reductions.
Lightning Flood, Boneyard, and Shards cost 3780.

For whatever reason, NBs Path and Warden's Winters Revenge get a slight cost decrease to 3510/3240 and an increase in dps.. in their original notes they stated why, but I can't find the patch.

The abillities now get more damage/healing as they rank up instead of duration. This is a buff, the duration as stated in the notes is now a base of 15s instead of 12s. (To get to 18s with the passive 20% duration).

The 10s cooldown on the burst damage is a bit punishing leaving no room for error in a rotation.. I'd prefer to see it removed entirely with the damage spread amongst the ticks of damage.

While some nice quality of life changes, I agree.. the skill needs more. I believe it should get a synergy or an aoe radius boost.

And you are missing 1 point about Eruption/Ash Cloud/Cinder Storm, there is no way to stop it from being in effect on the ground by the player casting it, meaning when you move between dungeon mobs/public dungeon mobs or anything like that you are still being drained of magicka, even when it is not being actively used, in combat you could use synergy/some combat mechanic to restore that magicka yet here we are still being drained while we should recover from 1 fight and another fight. They really should have just put reduced cost into that skill, less clunky, easier to use and upfront cost would be more welcome unless we talk about the skill effects immediatly turning off after combat ends, but than again there is endless combat bug... Yeeee I will stick with just reduced skill cost and placing any synergy or making them wider like some Templar Skills.

Ok you were right after I calculated this setup indeed deals more damage but only thx to the longer time of the skill being in effect. If they would leave the damage/heal increase by second the damage would be even higher. But oh well let's not be 2 greedy

Juleris · September 2021

The changes to whip and Ardent Flame passives are great, however, Draconic Power passives are still absolute garbage, Stonefist hasn't been touched at all even though the community has been complaining about it since its rework a couple years ago, Spiked Armor is still a bad ability and Protective Scale should be reverted to its old version where it would absorb or reflect projectiles depending on what morph you chose. If Wardens have that ability, Dragonknights should too. Additionally, Lava Whip still costs Magicka to use even though it scales off of your highest offensive stats, which means stam DKs will run into sustain issues if they use whip as a spammable.

Here are my propositions for additional changes:

- Make Lava Whip cost Magicka or Stamina depending on which resource is higher.
- Iron Skin should provide 10% block cost reduction in addition to 10% block mitigation, similar to how slotting Defensive Stance works
- Burning Heart should provide 10% increased damage to Draconic Power abilities in addition to 12% healing received for having a Draconic Power ability active
- Elder Dragon should provide 2% Max Health for every Draconic Power ability slotted instead of Health Recovery
- Scaled Armor needs to be reworked to provide percent damage reduction instead of armor. I propose 6% damage reduction.
- Stonefist needs to be reworked to be the standard Dragonknight heal ability, similar to Breath of Life for Templars and cost Magicka. The Obsidian Shard morph can provide the benefit of additional targets hit with the burst heal. Stone Giant should be reworked to function similar to the base morph in that it heals an ally and costs Magicka, but it should maintain the Stagger debuff. Stagger should be reworked entirely to debuff an enemy with 5% increased damage taken as a unique debuff and not require a stacking mechanic. Stagger can be nerfed to only last 4 or 5 seconds in exchange for its easier application, however.
- Spiked Armor's damage needs to proc on direct damage, rather than direct melee damage. Additionally, the damage reflect and the damage from Volatile Armor should scale off of your Physical and Spell Resistance, since it is a defensive tank ability. Hardened Armor's damage shield needs to be buffed.
- Protective Scale and Protective Plate should be reverted to absorb up to 3 projectiles. Dragon Fire Scale should retain its current functionality, albeit with increased damage to reinforce it being the aggressive morph.
- Obsidian Shield and its morphs should scale off of either Max Health or Max Magicka, whichever results in a stronger shield. This would allow Dragonknight Healers to better utilize the ability, instead of exclusively using it for its Major Mending.
- Ash Storm and Cinder Storm should provide a synergy to the person standing inside called Smoulder. Synergizing with Smoulder causes you to receive a burst heal and deal 5% more damage for 10 seconds. The Eruption morph provides a synergy called Incinerate, which deals burst Flame damage in the area and heals the synergy activator for the damage caused, similar to how Boneyard works on Necromancer. Also, Cinder Storm and Eruption should have swapped visuals, as Cinder Storm uses a spewy lava animation that looks like it would deal damage, whereas Eruption uses a smoky ash storm effect that looks like it would heal.

WillyOneBlood · September 2021

The changes are very small, they don't give anything the community has been asking for. Still no group support, gap closers still broken, synergy still tied to a 250 cost ultimate that is useless is trials, sustain still bad. The changes are so minor it's laughable.

gariondavey · September 2021

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All! Thanks for the feedback here. Glad to see most are happy about the changes to DK. We are keeping track of additional feedback throughout this process, so feel free to note feedback. No promises on changes for this update, but we are keeping track for possible future use as well. Thanks, all.

Hi @ZOS_Kevin, there are some great changes here for dk and I am glad you guys are paying them the attention they need.
What I don't like about the whip changes is how it still costs mag (not dynamic cost). Stam dk already has a lot of mag abilities they need to/should run for a well rounded pvp build. A spammable of your off-resource would only compound that already existent issue.

Thanks.

Urzigurumash · September 2021

All of the changes look great to me, very well done. Sure it would be ideal if Whip cost Stam, but it can definitely be made to work in PvP. It will still scale off your Max Stam. We have 2 hybrid sustain passives, and they're both getting a buff. If you don't appreciate the value of Mag Regen on S&B DK, spend some time tanking in PvE.

Jodynn wrote: »

Flames of oblivion to three targets instead of two is kind of.. yay but it would be better to just create an AoE on impact of around but I'll take every bit that I can get.

I personally enjoy FoO as it is. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this skill was changed from being classified as AoE to Single Target within the last few years. There are some benefits to not being classified as AoE in PvP, like not being mitigated by Evasion. It's great that Cauterize was given Savagery.

LonePirate wrote: »

Still nothing about a non-ultimate group stun for DKs like what Sorcs have with Streak.

Turn Evil and Hypnosis? Hypnosis has its limitations I know, but why do we need a class version?

Urzigurumash · September 2021

And if you think running S&B and holding block is bad or noobish, you're on the wrong class.

xDeusEJRx · September 2021

Urzigurumash wrote: »

All of the changes look great to me, very well done. Sure it would be ideal if Whip cost Stam, but it can definitely be made to work in PvP. It will still scale off your Max Stam. We have 2 hybrid sustain passives, and they're both getting a buff. If you don't appreciate the value of Mag Regen on S&B DK, spend some time tanking in PvE.

Still think that a stamina spammable would be more ideal, sustain would be far too unmanagable. IMO a magic whip on a stam DK would make it resemble a hybrid, not a Stam DK. The way DK plays now, you are already on the verge of being hybrid and having a mag cost spammable would pretty much solidify that. For someone who doesn't have access to any of the guilds, you would be forced to run wings, volatile armor, whip, maybe or maybe not cauterize/FoO, maybe fossilize or fragmented shield in order to get the minor brutality buff. And also maybe green dragon's blood too if anyone actually uses that

All those abilities and you're tip toeing on the line between stam DK and hybrid DK at that point. You'd need hybrid max mag and stam to really sustain that much, and even when they hybridize most stats in the upcoming patch, max magic and stam aren't hybrid, so you'd have to specifically build into mag and mag sustain in order to manage that much resources.

I wouldn't call that a stam DK, you'd really need a stam spammable to identify as a stam DK as your only stam abilities might be venomous claw, noxious and rally/vigor, considering how reliant you are on magic based abilities, without usage of any of the guilds in the game.

ajkb78 · September 2021

Jamdarius wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Jamdarius wrote: »

Ash Cloud:
This ability and its morphs now cost 378 Magicka every second while active [...] I just do not understand the intent here fully, while it is great it is not upfront cost, it should have just added any synergy (cleanse/minor/major buff rly anything) and lowered cost and it would be perfectly normal healing skill on par with Warden/Templar and anything else really.

These abilities now rank up in 1.1% healing or damage done per rank, rather than 1 second. Just why? You wanted to fix the DPS/Heal DK yet you lower it by freakin' lot ?

Eruption (morph): This morph’s initial hit damage now has a 10 second cooldown to prevent it from turning into an incredibly low costing AoE spammable. Basically I will be using mages guild one skill instead because this morph makes no sense, you miscast the morph by 1mm and you loose tons of DPS, magicka cost is still 2 high given that we get drained every second now it lasts.

A few things I think you're missing here:
378 magicka a second is the standard for other class related 10 second ground dots, keep in mind, this is before cost reductions.
Lightning Flood, Boneyard, and Shards cost 3780.

For whatever reason, NBs Path and Warden's Winters Revenge get a slight cost decrease to 3510/3240 and an increase in dps.. in their original notes they stated why, but I can't find the patch.

The abillities now get more damage/healing as they rank up instead of duration. This is a buff, the duration as stated in the notes is now a base of 15s instead of 12s. (To get to 18s with the passive 20% duration).

The 10s cooldown on the burst damage is a bit punishing leaving no room for error in a rotation.. I'd prefer to see it removed entirely with the damage spread amongst the ticks of damage.

While some nice quality of life changes, I agree.. the skill needs more. I believe it should get a synergy or an aoe radius boost.

And you are missing 1 point about Eruption/Ash Cloud/Cinder Storm, there is no way to stop it from being in effect on the ground by the player casting it, meaning when you move between dungeon mobs/public dungeon mobs or anything like that you are still being drained of magicka, even when it is not being actively used, in combat you could use synergy/some combat mechanic to restore that magicka yet here we are still being drained while we should recover from 1 fight and another fight.

They could just make it a toggle. Once cast it lasts forever, does its dot and charges magicka by the second until toggled off again or you run out of magicka. Want to move it? Toggle it off and then recast. It would be kind of neat, you could just leave it there running forever, no GCDs used, or you could recast after 10s to get the initial burst again. No, there's nothing like that in the game at the moment, but unique things (that still fit the combat standards) are cool.

Ditronus · September 2021

Jodynn wrote: »

Seemingly good changes, molten whip will probably fall off in PvE because Flame Lash will most likely out DPS it.
Molten whip will be slightly better for trash packs because you just spam engulfing anyways.. but it's not like you can skill morph swap during a trial, now can you?

Some pain points still exist, but glad to be moving in the right direction.

Would still love something interesting, like a combo.. Combat feels pretty flat in ESO right now. Dot up then spam spam spam.

Flames of oblivion to three targets instead of two is kind of.. yay but it would be better to just create an AoE on impact of around but I'll take every bit that I can get.

Lastly, I still want a flame atro but honestly, give it to our sorc brothers and sisters, make them more than just lightning, their summons are kind of.. lame. (I mean really, a scamp? In end game? It's beyond lame to be max level and have a ... bloody... scamp.)

I'll test out the magDK changes and update this post at some point.

Yea, coming to ESO as a long-time WoW/mmo player, the combat is horribly repetitive and static on longer fights. It's fine while questing as things die too quickly, like in one or two skill casts, but in later dlc dungeon bosses with millions of HP, combat problems become glaringly obvious. As you said, you just constantly refresh buffs, lay down dots, and spam a couple seconds before you do it all over again. Every class. Every build. Same thing. In WoW, you had much more depth to combat where each of the 36 specializations had dozens of different abilities that often interact with each other, creating various cooldown layering scenarios or reactive gameplay with procs, with each class having its own type of rotation/priority system with its own unique resource.

I think trying to be too much like Skyrim is and still is a fault in ESO design.

I do think the hybrid changes in this PTS will help alleviate some of the year's-old boring builds everyone is forced to run if they want to be competitive.

Argonianwerecroc212 · September 2021

Will one of the whip morphs actually cost stamina instead of Magicka