PTS Update 41 - Feedback Thread for Combat & Classes

acastanza_ESO · February 20

I want to add my (consistently ignored) voice to the chorus saying that this insane siphoning strikes buff can not go to live.

Jammy420 · February 20

KlauthWarthog wrote: »

You know what would be fantastic to see on the PTS patch notes? Acknowledgement of the larger perceived player concerns.
Stuff like "We have seen the concerns regarding the changes to Necromancer, and are discussing them with the team", or "We have seen the concerns regarding the lack of changes to Templar, but do not intend to act on them for this release." (those are just examples, do not obsess over them).
As it currently is, I have no reason to believe giving feedback for the PTS changes has any value whatsoever.

There is honestly no point. This dev team will just ignore 99 percent, and cater to the 1 percent who are happy.

Aldoss · February 20

[snip]

This is a moment to win points with your playerbase.

"We tried to create something unique for necro, but ultimately, it is clear that it fell short and nerfed an already struggling class. We've decided to revert necro back to how it was for this patch and do more in-house testing, which we hope to debut next PTS cycle. Thanks for your feedback and time in testing this ability."

Want me to restart my sub? Copy and paste that. My wife and I are @ImHerHusband and @ImHisWife. My sub will be active within 24 hours of that statement.

Your skill not only fails to solve the problem it set out to fix, it ended up making the entirety of necro worse. How you could go yet another patch nerfing necro and buffing NB is crazy. I didn't have that on my bingo card.

Letting this go to live is absurdly stubborn. You failed. Admit it. Move on. Learn from the mistake.

[edited for bashing]

Jammy420 · February 20

Aldoss wrote: »

[snip]

This is a moment to win points with your playerbase.

"We tried to create something unique for necro, but ultimately, it is clear that it fell short and nerfed an already struggling class. We've decided to revert necro back to how it was for this patch and do more in-house testing, which we hope to debut next PTS cycle. Thanks for your feedback and time in testing this ability."

Want me to restart my sub? Copy and paste that. My wife and I are @ImHerHusband and @ImHisWife. My sub will be active within 24 hours of that statement.

Your skill not only fails to solve the problem it set out to fix, it ended up making the entirety of necro worse. How you could go yet another patch nerfing necro and buffing NB is crazy. I didn't have that on my bingo card.

Letting this go to live is absurdly stubborn. You failed. Admit it. Move on. Learn from the mistake.

[edited for bashing]

Sadly, this is an all but extinct trait.

ZhuJiuyin · February 20

So, in this nearly month-long PTS cycle, this is what we get?
According to developer comments, Sorc and Nec are the focus of this update,

But look what we got?
A worse version of necro.
There was no response to feedback about Sorc.

For the upcoming Jester’s Festival, I feel like we do feel like Jester.

Marronsuisse · February 20

So according to the notes, Grave Lord's Sacrifice leads to a large DPS loss over Blighted Blastbones, and to address this we're not seeing tweaks to Gravelord's Sacrifice, but instead seeing changes to a different skill, Flame Skull.

I do not want to be forced to use Flame Skull to make GLS worth using. I especially don't want to use it if I have to keep track of the number of casts. I can't count when I'm fighting. (Sad but true).

If GLS is not performing as intended, please ZOS, tweak the skill itself, don't make it rely on other skills with complicated conditions. This completely contradicts the expressed intent of allowing Necromancers simpler rotations and it cripples build freedom, especially for tighter one bar builds.

DarkSoul6789 · February 20

New player here - Does anyone know if the changes will make the nightblade rotation easier to use in PvE?

Estin · February 20

DarkSoul6789 wrote: »

New player here - Does anyone know if the changes will make the nightblade rotation easier to use in PvE?

The changes to concealed weapon (which is an overall nerf in PvE) will make the nightblade rotation easier since you will no longer need to slot and cast concealed weapon every 10 seconds since you will no longer see any benefit from it. Debilitate, or something else, will replace it. You also do not need to worry about if you're receiving the major expedition buff from twisting paths since you no longer are using concealed weapon. Twisting Paths was very buggy in that depending on the direction you are facing and the slightest elevation of the terrain, you would not receive the major expedition buff.

DarkSoul6789 · February 20

sh4d0wh4z3 wrote: »

DarkSoul6789 wrote: »

New player here - Does anyone know if the changes will make the nightblade rotation easier to use in PvE?

The changes to concealed weapon (which is an overall nerf in PvE) will make the nightblade rotation easier since you will no longer need to slot and cast concealed weapon every 10 seconds since you will no longer see any benefit from it. Debilitate, or something else, will replace it. You also do not need to worry about if you're receiving the major expedition buff from twisting paths since you no longer are using concealed weapon. Twisting Paths was very buggy in that depending on the direction you are facing and the slightest elevation of the terrain, you would not receive the major expedition buff.

Hm so even if it's easier would NB's still be not taken in PvE? Lower damage but also I'm not seeing any increase to AoE

lostineternity · February 21

With all these changes they forgot to add class style for necro - clown. This class is a joke.
Oh and this is paywalled class. Amazing job ZOS.
Also try to talk about non combat pets on stream like for 1 hour, 20 minute is not enough right now.

Tyrion87 · February 21

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

So, in this nearly month-long PTS cycle, this is what we get?
According to developer comments, Sorc and Nec are the focus of this update,

But look what we got?
A worse version of necro.
There was no response to feedback about Sorc.

For the upcoming Jester’s Festival, I feel like we do feel like Jester.

Exactly my thoughts. What's more, I have a feeling that in all these (rightful and justified) concerns about necromancer changes we have lost sight of the changes regarding sorcerer which, along with necro, was supposed to be the focus of this update.

With regard to non pet sorc DPS the change to Expert Summoner passive is not enough. As I tested on the PTS yesterday, non pet sorc is still way behind the pet version in terms of DPS. Non pet sorcs have been waiting YEARS (!) for any change that would put them on pair with pets and this is all they get? There are hundreds of videos, analysis and feedback proving that these changes achieved absolutely nothing for non pet sorc DPS and will not help players who prefer playing without pets. If this is the vision of the devs for the sorcerer class, maybe it is high time to rename it to summoner at this point...

Dubhliam · February 21

My thoughts on Arcanist balance:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8050934/#Comment_8050934

MudcrabAttack · February 21

DarkSoul6789 wrote: »

sh4d0wh4z3 wrote: »

DarkSoul6789 wrote: »

New player here - Does anyone know if the changes will make the nightblade rotation easier to use in PvE?

The changes to concealed weapon (which is an overall nerf in PvE) will make the nightblade rotation easier since you will no longer need to slot and cast concealed weapon every 10 seconds since you will no longer see any benefit from it. Debilitate, or something else, will replace it. You also do not need to worry about if you're receiving the major expedition buff from twisting paths since you no longer are using concealed weapon. Twisting Paths was very buggy in that depending on the direction you are facing and the slightest elevation of the terrain, you would not receive the major expedition buff.

Hm so even if it's easier would NB's still be not taken in PvE? Lower damage but also I'm not seeing any increase to AoE

Major berserk was buffing AOE, now it isn’t. They’re set up to be an even rarer breed of unicorn in hard mode trials

They got amazing PVP buffs, though, like tons of regeneration and self healing, harder hitting spam, ultimate that buffs longer as you wait longer

katorga · February 21

JerBearESO wrote: »

brandsnipe wrote: »

Alaztor91 wrote: »

While I think that the 9.3.3 changes to Grave Lord's Sacrifice are a step in the right direction, they don't completely fix the issues that it has when you compare it to old Stalking Blastbones.

While you now technically have access to ranged corpse generation and better AoE via Flame Skull, I don't really think that it feels as fluid as it was with old BB. Old BB allowed you to basically generate a Corpse every 3s, but you didn't have to use 3 GCD for that.

Now, instead of having to cast BB every 3s and keep the rest of your rotation relatively simple, you now have to make sure that you cast Flame Skull 3 times before every Boneyard or Siphon cast (that's basically 9 Flame Skull, 2 Boneyard and 1 Siphon, in a simple static 20s rotation) which imo feels way more complicated. This also gets way more convoluted if you have to switch targets.

I thought that ''help reduce the intense demand and complex rotation requirement of the class'' was one of the main reasons for this change.

Exactly, it seems to make it more complicated. Necro has A LOT of problems but BB hindering my rotation wasn't one.

It is now. Say hello to sacroBones, "the solution" to the problem you didn't have, that becomes the problem it aims to solve. Now that is some next level paradox 😀

Ain't that the truth.

What is "really" going on is that Necro was a better bomber than Nightblade, can't have that. ZOS has now removed almost every element of a Necro bomb. All that's left is Colossus, and I bet next patch it smashes the Necro and applies some useless self buff.

KainedED · February 21

Blighted Blastbones does not feel good, Stalking Blast bones feels amazing.

Please reconsider swapping the morphs and change Blighted Blastbones Instead of Stalking.

Losing the 50% modifier results in nearly a 4-5-7.5k on average tooltip loss. Major and minor defile do not make up for this damage loss in any way shape or form.

The overwhelming majority of handful of necromancer players are in agreement this is a very bad design change. Please reconsider this.

RaptorRodeoGod · February 21

The AoE effect of new Diseased is cool, but it feels weird being the only status to have a cooldown on its effects. The AoE portion does not proc enough to make it the focus of a build.

VanLo83 · February 22

Dear ZOS, PLEASE, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE stop trying to "revamp" necro with your current silly ideas. They don't work, no one ever asked for changes like this and it's baffling how you guys manage to not even CONSIDER any of the excellent ideas that my fellow necro players already put forward in order to fix the necro.

If you're not willing to listen to our feedback and ideas about skills regarding a certain class from people that actually play said class (everyone knows that ZOS doesn't play ESO it's clear as daylight), then please STOP what you're doing and throw the current "revamps" where they belong... in the Recycle Bin. Leave Necro alone please.

Necrotech_Master · February 22

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

The AoE effect of new Diseased is cool, but it feels weird being the only status to have a cooldown on its effects. The AoE portion does not proc enough to make it the focus of a build.

from what i seen the aoe dot portion of diseased only ticks once every 4 seconds (the status effect duration itself is 4 seconds, so if it doesnt proc on application, it will only proc the aoe once per application in total)

if it did the aoe on application, it might do 1 more hit as its expiring, but in either case the dmg from the aoe is a bit lower than the main diseased dot

hypnoticbeast · February 23

DarkSoul6789 wrote: »

sh4d0wh4z3 wrote: »

DarkSoul6789 wrote: »

New player here - Does anyone know if the changes will make the nightblade rotation easier to use in PvE?

The changes to concealed weapon (which is an overall nerf in PvE) will make the nightblade rotation easier since you will no longer need to slot and cast concealed weapon every 10 seconds since you will no longer see any benefit from it. Debilitate, or something else, will replace it. You also do not need to worry about if you're receiving the major expedition buff from twisting paths since you no longer are using concealed weapon. Twisting Paths was very buggy in that depending on the direction you are facing and the slightest elevation of the terrain, you would not receive the major expedition buff.

Hm so even if it's easier would NB's still be not taken in PvE? Lower damage but also I'm not seeing any increase to AoE

You are not going to see much in the way of AOE updates on a single target class. And after testing out the new CW. It relies on the Shadow Cloak skill "in combat" to get the 10% buff. You can't SNEAK in the middle of a fight. So you are forced to use that skill because it is not getting enough use in PVE. It needs more then just a free crit attack. Like right after the cloak ends Your next X amount strikes from any source of damage will restore X% of your primary resource would be a better rotation fix than that Syphoning Attack nightmare they got going on in the test.

MashmalloMan · February 24

Note: 3600 damage is the same tooltip as live. 1200 is 1/3 the damage.

Took another crack at changing Necro's skills this week for what I think would make more sense.

Your objectives from the beginning of PTS to now:

Simplify Necro rotation with a new playstyle option.
Retain the original BB playstyle using Blighted Blastbones.
Add more ranged corpse generation lost from picking Gravelord's Sacrifice over BB.
Add more aoe damage lost from picking Gravelord's Sacrifice over BB.

Your current design basically fails every one of these objectives. My above changes aim to fix that.

Blighted Blastbones now has dynamic cost, flame damage, and includes the base skills 5% damage bonus for 10s. This retains the original playstyle from Stalking AND Blighted Blastbones better. It doesn't have the stalking modifier for higher potential damage in those rare scenario's, but it does have more consistent damage overall due to Burning and the 5% bonus. Keeping this as Flame damage also allows it to be buffed by items like Encratis or DK's Breath, and works better against vampires for PVP.
GLS is not an easy skill to manage by any stretch. It can only be cast in combat, you don't get the buff until 3s later, the corpse and aoe mechanic is tied to a second ability which locks you into spamming Flame Skull 3 times, a skill which many players prefer not to use. All of this makes the skill extremely clunky, restrictive, and somehow more complicated than the original skill. My changes allow the ability to be cast out of combat because you need a target again, the skill is strong on its own for corpse generation and aoe damage by passively summoning skeletons for 1/3 the damage. The only downside is the skeletons do NOT jump to their target, so their is a bit of balance there vs the other morph because they can miss.

Please, above all else, think about what is fun, this is a game. What exactly is fun about the current design of GLS requring Flame Skull and doing effectively nothing of notice while it's active. What is fun about losing Necromancer's best dps skill?

Alaztor91 · February 24

Just wanted to add that old Blastbones and Flame Skull have the same resource cost, but old BB (and Skeletal Mage/Spirit Mender) gets a 50% cost reduction when the Reusable Parts passive activates. Since old BB is basically a ''semi spammable'' in your rotation, you pretty much have a 100% uptime on that passive.

This doesn't happen with Flame Skull, so you probably want to address that if the whole ''spam flame skull'' playstyle ends up staying.

MashmalloMan · February 24

Alaztor91 wrote: »

Just wanted to add that old Blastbones and Flame Skull have the same resource cost, but old BB (and Skeletal Mage/Spirit Mender) gets a 50% cost reduction when the Reusable Parts passive activates. Since old BB is basically a ''semi spammable'' in your rotation, you pretty much have a 100% uptime on that passive.

This doesn't happen with Flame Skull, so you probably want to address that if the whole ''spam flame skull'' playstyle ends up staying.

Lets hope it doesn't stay.

If you look at my suggestion above, I would be willing to concede the sustain concern IF the ability dealt damage on its own for the 20s.

If it remains as is with Flame Skulls, then yes, it should also reduce the cost of that ability by like 20% to account for the loss of Reusable Parts happening so frequently.

Aldoss · February 25

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Note: 3600 damage is the same tooltip as live. 1200 is 1/3 the damage.

Took another crack at changing Necro's skills this week for what I think would make more sense.

Your objectives from the beginning of PTS to now:
Simplify Necro rotation with a new playstyle option.

Retain the original BB playstyle using Blighted Blastbones.

Add more ranged corpse generation lost from picking Gravelord's Sacrifice over BB.

Add more aoe damage lost from picking Gravelord's Sacrifice over BB.

Your current design basically fails every one of these objectives. My above changes aim to fix that.
Blighted Blastbones now has dynamic cost, flame damage, and includes the base skills 5% damage bonus for 10s. This retains the original playstyle from Stalking AND Blighted Blastbones better. It doesn't have the stalking modifier for higher potential damage in those rare scenario's, but it does have more consistent damage overall due to Burning and the 5% bonus. Keeping this as Flame damage also allows it to be buffed by items like Encratis or DK's Breath, and works better against vampires for PVP.

GLS is not an easy skill to manage by any stretch. It can only be cast in combat, you don't get the buff until 3s later, the corpse and aoe mechanic is tied to a second ability which locks you into spamming Flame Skull 3 times, a skill which many players prefer not to use. All of this makes the skill extremely clunky, restrictive, and somehow more complicated than the original skill. My changes allow the ability to be cast out of combat because you need a target again, the skill is strong on its own for corpse generation and aoe damage by passively summoning skeletons for 1/3 the damage. The only downside is the skeletons do NOT jump to their target, so their is a bit of balance there vs the other morph because they can miss.

Please, above all else, think about what is fun, this is a game. What exactly is fun about the current design of GLS requring Flame Skull and doing effectively nothing of notice while it's active. What is fun about losing Necromancer's best dps skill?

This is the best compromise for all parties considering we all know that there is zero chance the devs will remove GLS from this next patch.

5% dmg maintains the new theme of the base skill, allows for some buffer with the new status effect changes, and doesn't mess with anything else in the class that's been suggested, such as including a new sticky dot. The mechanics already exist because of GLS, they would only need to be tied to the new bb morph.

This isn't great, but I'll take it and be appeased while ZOS works on their necro vision, cuz that's what they're doing... right? Working on their vision? Hello?!

master_vanargand · February 27

PvE Nightblade DPS is now the weakest.
Not bad for a tank or healer, but mediocre.
Nightblade is a class that has been played as a damage dealer for a long time, but it doesn't seem to be fun anymore.

This update was a disappointing start to the 10th anniversary.
We waited 10 years, but we were tired of waiting.
Please realize that game creators are losing the trust of players.

Iuppiterr · February 27

master_vanargand wrote: »

PvE Nightblade DPS is now the weakest.
Not bad for a tank or healer, but mediocre.
Nightblade is a class that has been played as a damage dealer for a long time, but it doesn't seem to be fun anymore.

This update was a disappointing start to the 10th anniversary.
We waited 10 years, but we were tired of waiting.
Please realize that game creators are losing the trust of players.

I think Nightblade healers have the potential to be the BEST healer in the game as long as u get the warden passive from somewhere. PVP its the BEST class right now potential wise so at least you dont have to delete your charakter like Necro

sharquez · February 27

Bring back release necro.

Hottytotz · February 27

sharquez wrote: »

Bring back release necro.

Release necro was only good because no one else was able to bring Major Vuln. A couple things were overtuned but for those that actually played at the time it was seen as fun because necro had unique and sought after things for the group. Nothing there now even if they bring back blastbones its not good and hasnt been.

Hottytotz · February 27

master_vanargand wrote: »

PvE Nightblade DPS is now the weakest.
Not bad for a tank or healer, but mediocre.
Nightblade is a class that has been played as a damage dealer for a long time, but it doesn't seem to be fun anymore.

This update was a disappointing start to the 10th anniversary.
We waited 10 years, but we were tired of waiting.
Please realize that game creators are losing the trust of players.

Nightblades just suffer from the lack of balance between pvp and pve. In pve they are the worst dps even behind necro. In pvp their mobility/stealth/burst and stupid broken and keep getting even better. As long as both of these things are chained to NB "damage" PVE dps nightblade will continue to never be a thing.

Tro00 · February 28

Please buff Warden. With the nerf to barbed trap, now its over 15k dps behind other classes. Look at player stats, if these changes go live, no one will play it.