Which Class do you think is the weakest at that moment? (PVE wise)

Quethrosar · August 2023

this is making me angry, this isn't dnd or everquest where your role is defined by your class, cleric, wizard, warrior. this is supposed to be any class can be any role. but they do not make it so all classes can be equal.

StarOfElyon · August 2023

Necromancer

Necro class skills are dookie.

valenwood_vegan · August 2023

Necromancer

I have 29 characters now across two accounts, with many race / class combinations... and the one thing I don't play is necro. It's so bad. The skills are so clunky. It always feels so awful.

ZhuJiuyin · August 2023

Sorcerer

Thanks to esologs, let us speak with data. As of 2023/8/20 (GMT+8), according to the log, the statistics of clearing VSE HM for each occupation are

From high to low:
DK 111
Arcanist 105
Necromancer 56
Templar 51
Sorce 35
Warden 30
Nightblade 4

Obviously, Sorce, Warden, and Nightblade need more attention and BUFF. Judging from the customs clearance data, these three classes undoubtedly belong to the bottom classes.

Do you think that such data is not enough to objectively show the pros and cons of all classes in terms of damage?
How about such data?
VSE HM top 100 output:
Warden 1
Necromancer 8
Templar 14
Arcanist 36
DK 41

The top 100 has no place for Sorce and Nightblade at all, and these two classes should have the highest DPS in the setting, but ironically, they don't actually have the ability to compete for the top 100.

Sorce, Warden, and Nightblade really need to be completely buffed or reworked, and the official should stop using dummy analysis as a reference and start using the actual situation of the boss battle as a reference.

Sorce and Nightblade lack effective AOE, and Warden is bound to the Ice Staff, making it difficult for these three classes to have a better play space.
Arguing about parsing data on dummies is also pointless, "BOSS is not a dummy"

WrathOfInnos · August 2023

Warden

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

Thanks to esologs, let us speak with data. As of 2023/8/20 (GMT+8), according to the log, the statistics of clearing VSE HM for each occupation are

From high to low:
DK 111
Arcanist 105
Necromancer 56
Templar 51
Sorce 35
Warden 30
Nightblade 4

Obviously, Sorce, Warden, and Nightblade need more attention and BUFF. Judging from the customs clearance data, these three classes undoubtedly belong to the bottom classes.

Do you think that such data is not enough to objectively show the pros and cons of all classes in terms of damage?
How about such data?
VSE HM top 100 output:
Warden 1
Necromancer 8
Templar 14
Arcanist 36
DK 41

The top 100 has no place for Sorce and Nightblade at all, and these two classes should have the highest DPS in the setting, but ironically, they don't actually have the ability to compete for the top 100.

Sorce, Warden, and Nightblade really need to be completely buffed or reworked, and the official should stop using dummy analysis as a reference and start using the actual situation of the boss battle as a reference.

Sorce and Nightblade lack effective AOE, and Warden is bound to the Ice Staff, making it difficult for these three classes to have a better play space.
Arguing about parsing data on dummies is also pointless, "BOSS is not a dummy"

At least Sorc and NB are getting some small DPS increases tomorrow (one extra GCD every 40s and some buffs applying from off-bar). Warden seems to remain bottom of the barrel, with passive and active skills mandating the worst weapon type, and class defining skills like shalks hitting like a feather.

Quethrosar · August 2023

yes, people say sorc aoe is great except it sucks because its area is so small. mobs very rarely group into a small area that lightning flood covers. hurricane and the other means you need to be in the center or near the pack of mobs. lightning staff itself does more damage than class skills i have tried. I know it's getting changed and will see how it is after the patch.

for so long sorc has had to rely on weapon skills over class skills for aoe.

i am not an end game expert but have experimented a lot and have a 105k parse. I do want to find a viable build for aoe that will compete with heavy attacks in trials. I do not enjoy using ha sorcerer when I can 2 bar more dps but suck in aoe.

ZhuJiuyin · August 2023

Sorcerer

Quethrosar wrote: »

yes, people say sorc aoe is great except it sucks because its area is so small. mobs very rarely group into a small area that lightning flood covers. hurricane and the other means you need to be in the center or near the pack of mobs. lightning staff itself does more damage than class skills i have tried. I know it's getting changed and will see how it is after the patch.

for so long sorc has had to rely on weapon skills over class skills for aoe.

i am not an end game expert but have experimented a lot and have a 105k parse. I do want to find a viable build for aoe that will compete with heavy attacks in trials. I do not enjoy using ha sorcerer when I can 2 bar more dps but suck in aoe.

You are right,however, ZOS doesn't seem to understand that some players don't use heavy attack BD because they like it, but are forced to use it in order to gain AOE ability.
And somewhat ironically, HA Sorc is the build with the highest AOE damage for Sorc, because Sorc lacks a reliable source of AOE and Buff.
And most of the time, it is difficult for Sorc to play the Increases Shock Damage effect of passive Energized, and HA build can play Energized more effectively. And it can also provide the source of Major Prophecy that Sorc has been calling for.

Sorc's Dark Magic, Storm Calling needs to be reworked or buffed. Also, Most of Sorc's skills have a long waiting time, which makes Sorc not so flexible.
Crystal Shard, Dark Exchange have a cast time
Daedric Mines have a wait time
Rune Cage has a wait time
Shattering Prison also needs to wait to deal damage (compared to other classes that can deal instant damage and immobilize enemies)
Mages' Fury has a not described wait time (about 1.5 seconds)
Lightning Splash has a not described wait time (or an excessively long casting animation)
Bound Armaments have a wait time

Daoin · August 2023

Arcanist

Arcanist, so please dont nerf it !

merpins · August 2023

From my testing, Necromancer, Templar, and Warden are the weakest overall, followed closely behind by Nightblade. Stam sorc can be on this list as well, but mag sorc is doing fine. DK and Arcanist are fine. It's more nuanced than it looks, too. For example, Nightblade damage can be good, but the skill cap is so high that not many people can play it properly, as an example.

That's not to say that all of these classes are bad. Mag templar is still great for solo content even if its damage is a bit low. Stam sorc can still hit like a truck depending on your build. I've even done good numbers on a bleed Warden. But you can make something good out of anything in this game, and even "good" just means it's not terrible. They all need to be brought up to DK and Arcanist's level (arcanist damage is lower than DK, but it's in a good spot compared to other classes).

ZhuJiuyin · August 2023

Sorcerer

merpins wrote: »

From my testing, Necromancer, Templar, and Warden are the weakest overall, followed closely behind by Nightblade. Stam sorc can be on this list as well, but mag sorc is doing fine. DK and Arcanist are fine. It's more nuanced than it looks, too. For example, Nightblade damage can be good, but the skill cap is so high that not many people can play it properly, as an example.

That's not to say that all of these classes are bad. Mag templar is still great for solo content even if its damage is a bit low. Stam sorc can still hit like a truck depending on your build. I've even done good numbers on a bleed Warden. But you can make something good out of anything in this game, and even "good" just means it's not terrible. They all need to be brought up to DK and Arcanist's level (arcanist damage is lower than DK, but it's in a good spot compared to other classes).

Magic sorc is actually not good. In the clearance record of VSE HM in eso log, there are only 3 magic sors, and the rest are all Stam sorc.
Another irony, in terms of setting, sorc should be known for its magic ability, but the best BD is stam BD.

But you are right about this point, "They all need to be brought up to DK and Arcanist's level " From the log data I provided earlier, it can be seen that DK and Arcanist have twice as many clearances as the third place Necromancer number of people. In the ranking of the top 100 damage classes, they also have 3 times more people than the third-placed Templar.
And Sorc and Nightblade didn't even have the ability to compete for the top 100 damage rankings.

KS_Amt38 · August 2023

Nightblade

Nightblades were used to be the most OP Class in the Game. Now they are DPS-Wise just a meme in trials.

Major_Toughness · August 2023

Nightblade

Whole problem with NB is it has some skill hurdles with all of your damage revolving around Incap.

You need to have all your dots up and the Incap so you get 2x bow proc and spammables in the window for maximum damage.

So if the boss moves, or a mechanic happens, this can interrupt your Incap window and it's harder to get the same DPS as other classes can by just pressing their skills when they want.

Turtle_Bot · August 2023

Sorcerer

Assuming this is for end game and not overland where you can run around with no armor and kill everything. A lot of this depends on the builds and roles of the class we are talking about.

Traditional 2 bar LA weaving builds, it would easily be sorc and NB and this is due to the severe lack of cleave both classes have in their kits to deal with how current content is being designed (it's being designed such that a lot of cleave is required to efficiently clear important adds while also dpsing down bosses at the same time) and the 2 classes don't even get a significant single target DPS advantage over the other classes to make up for this either so they've just fallen off completely for majority of modern end game content. They would be followed by cro due to the clunkyness of its corpse mechanics making it difficult to fully utilize its class kit efficiently and warden thanks to being tied to a tank/support weapon for damage as well as bugs with delayed burst and the lack of an execute.

However, Sorc makes the best use of HA builds and 1 bar builds thanks to pets and crit surge, with pets being a huge reason for this since their downside of requiring slotting on both bars is no longer an issue anymore since there's only 1 bar to work with. Sorc also works fairly well as support dps thanks atro finally getting a QoL fix to apply its buff to the entire group instead of just half the group that should have been done years ago, but this is still debated for lots of end-game content since the dps (particularly cleave) of another DK/arcanist will often outperform providing major berserk to the group. Sorc needs a lot of help to bring it back into contention in terms of a traditional 2 bar LA weaving build, but that would require ZOS to actually fix/rework and drastically buff no-pet sorcs which they seem to have zero interest in doing, so it's unlikely this will ever happen.

NB needs to have its DoTs buffed (against monsters). Buffing the DoTs from twisting path, cripple and lotus fan against monsters would give NB some much needed cleave damage as well as better sustained damage for PvE. However, considering the class is currently extremely strong in PvP (stronger than DK in skilled hands, just harder to play than DK), this buff would need to be limited to PvE only unlike everything else they have been giving NB over the past 18 months.

Warden has issues as a DD, but that's mostly ZOS own making by tying the class to the frost staff for damage where the frost staff is designed to be a tanking/support weapon. The lack of an execute ability and bugs such as deep fissure not being able to hit certain bosses doesn't help it. Giving the class an execute and tidying up the bugs and freeing up a bit of the damage from the frost staff limitation would go a long way to helping warden in PvE.

Plar isn't in the worst spot right now, Not saying it's top tier, but it's not as bad as many claim. What holds plar back to me is the fact that the unique buff it brings to the group (minor sorcery) is not needed since DK already provides minor brutality (on top of also providing group wide long duration major brutality) and thanks to hybridisation you only need 1 of the 2 buffs, not both, so there's no real reason to bring a plar when DK just performs better and provides the equivalent of plars unique buff for the group already. Shards is the other issue, orbs provide the same sustain shards do, but with better healing/damage and that is a world skill, so much easier to fit into a raid composition than using a full character slot for a plar.

Necro to me just seems very clunky to use. It has a lot of great tools on paper, but the corpse mechanic itself to make the best use of those tools and a few other things need fixing up to allow for smoother gameplay and easier usage of their abilities (skull cast/travel speed, blast bones AI, have pets counting as both pets and DoTs to synergise with class passives etc).

DK and arcanist are just so strong and easy to play currently and they are just able to do everything, so there's no real need to bring anything else outside of using the other classes for support/niche roles (cro for EC, sorc for atro group major berserk, warden/nb healer) or for super niche situations (like Sorc/NB for Asylum Sanctorium where everything is single target). Especially since the other classes are brought along as supports (outside of main tank) anyway, there's no need to bring them along as dps.