When did DK's scales stop reflecting projectiles?

Avran_Sylt · February 9

That seems like a core identity kinda effect. Like a ranged parry for a second or two + then persistent Ranged damage reduction.

the1andonlyskwex · February 9

2019. My recollection is that the change was mostly motivated by glass cannon Nightblades one shotting themselves.

Avran_Sylt · February 9

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

2019

Ah yeah, stopped playing for quite a while around then.

huh. Kinda an odd choice.

the1andonlyskwex · February 9

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

2019

Ah yeah, stopped playing for quite a while around then.

huh. Kinda an odd choice.

See my edit for further explanation.

RebornV3x · February 9

If I remember it could reflect Meteor and Crystal Frags it was a hard counter to Sorcs.

Avran_Sylt · February 9

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

2019. My recollection is that the change was mostly motivated by glass cannon Nightblades one shotting themselves.

I mean. Yeah. Wasn't that kinda the point?

Though since I was that same glass-cannon NB that was mostly doing PvE at the time I don't really recall how well "balanced" the skill was. My opinion on it now would be it's something like a high cost ability that's resource intensive with only a short window where it can actually reflect (only a few or just one projectile with a lingering buff) and a healthy telegraph while respecting the travel time/audio of any reflected projectile. (which sounds like a massive pita to maintain)

RebornV3x wrote: »

If I remember it could reflect Meteor and Crystal Frags it was a hard counter to Sorcs.

Meteor's an AoE though? Not Single-Target Direct Damage Projectile, so unsure why it'd reflect that. And I'd assume (now, not sure about back then) that consistently reflecting Frags should mean they exhaust their Magicka in short order so as to not be able to continuously reflect the projectile.

RebornV3x · February 9

Crystal Fragments back then had a knock down if you could proc the insta cast on it. Bad sorcerers would get frags reflected by the scales and the sorc would get knocked down and I think they fixed the Meteor thing in 2017 but at launch I think it could be reflected since before the Meteor lands its just a single big rock.

Avran_Sylt · February 9

RebornV3x wrote: »

Crystal Fragments back then had a knock down if you could proc the insta cast on it. Bad sorcerers would get frags reflected by the scales and the sorc would get knocked down and I think they fixed the Meteor thing in 2017 but at launch I think it could be reflected since before the Meteor lands its just a single big rock.

gotcha (wrt frag)

Though w/meteor, I can get the idea around reflecting Direct AoE attacks back at the attacker, but from a design perspective you could then have something like 6 DK's all reflect the meteor back on the attacker, essentially dealing 6x the damage single-target.

While hilarious they've essentially become a magnifying glass, probably not good design.

Sluggy · February 10

RebornV3x wrote: »

If I remember it could reflect Meteor and Crystal Frags it was a hard counter to Sorcs.

They had disabled meteor and siege reflect many years before. In fact, there was a whole list that changed every patch with what was and wasn't reflectable. My guess is that was at least part of the reason behind the change. Weird choice when at the end of the day they beefed up the shield reflection skill and ultimate in a later patch. But then again, that's been the story of every combat change since about 2019. Changes made in spite of previous changes made to the contrary.

fred4 · February 10

I don't think it was NBs who complained so much as it was sorcs. Competitive players were primarily stam meleeblades at that time. Sure you could nuke yourself with Grim Focus, but that was about it. Kind of the same with sorcs, except that frags is/was perhaps more of a core/necessary skill, for them. Before the end, Crushing Shock was already changed so it would pass through, whereas curses and the sorc execute had always been non-reflectable, as far as I know.

Such a shame. One of the more unique skills that got nerfed and replaced with bland sauce. It was fairly expensive and would only reflect 3 or 4 projectiles. Even though wings remain situationally powerful, the skill hasn't really survived as a commonly used one. It's also just an example of how the game has dumbed down. The counter, previously, was to count. You might bring that shield down quickly, then get a burst off inbetween. Now it always lasts for 6 seconds. Nice and preductable for the DK, but boring. Something you can reliably budget magicka for, if you so choose.

My favorite thing about the old wings was that they reflected the Daedroth boss' fireballs back at him, in the IC arena district. They would land at his own feet, he would stand in them, and they would melt him away like nothing else.

shezof · February 10

it was an absolutely busted skill which also caused a lot of server input lag. you guys are not aware of what you are saying.

YandereGirlfriend · February 10

Classes should have more of these unique mechanics.

The most fun multiplayer games are those that are balanced around competing OP abilities that act as situational counters to each other. The least fun are those that watered-down mechanics so that everybody has their own skin of the same underlying abilities.

ESO seemed to have started out with the former and is definitely transitioning toward the latter.

Avran_Sylt · February 10

shezof wrote: »

it was an absolutely busted skill which also caused a lot of server input lag. you guys are not aware of what you are saying.

Input lag I can agree with. server performance and all that. As well as I've begun to notice people being able to dodge at oddly opportune times, no doubt aided by combat alerts on PC. And ultimately while I think it's a cool distinguishing ability, people are going to min-max the fun out of the game, in this case with 3rd party tools, which is something you do not want.

Vaqual · February 10

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Classes should have more of these unique mechanics.

The most fun multiplayer games are those that are balanced around competing OP abilities that act as situational counters to each other. The least fun are those that watered-down mechanics so that everybody has their own skin of the same underlying abilities.

ESO seemed to have started out with the former and is definitely transitioning toward the latter.

To a degree yes. But ESO is also a roleplay game, where fun combat elements are not solely defining the experience. And some of ESOs ability and class designs are visually so horrendous, that I am actually glad to have alternatives that can allow a similar play style.
Ideally combat should be fair, fun and visually/thematically satisfying - while a meta with visually cluttered and ugly OP sets/abilities that work the same on every class is the least desirable.

But they have to draw the line somewhere of course and many OP gameplay mechs just don't pair well with cooldown-free abilities.

Avran_Sylt · February 10

Vaqual wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Classes should have more of these unique mechanics.

The most fun multiplayer games are those that are balanced around competing OP abilities that act as situational counters to each other. The least fun are those that watered-down mechanics so that everybody has their own skin of the same underlying abilities.

ESO seemed to have started out with the former and is definitely transitioning toward the latter.

To a degree yes. But ESO is also a roleplay game, where fun combat elements are not solely defining the experience. And some of ESOs ability and class designs are visually so horrendous, that I am actually glad to have alternatives that can allow a similar play style.
Ideally combat should be fair, fun and visually/thematically satisfying - while a meta with visually cluttered and ugly OP sets/abilities that work the same on every class is the least desirable.

But they have to draw the line somewhere of course and many OP gameplay mechs just don't pair well with cooldown-free abilities.

Being the devil's advocate at this point, that's why they have things like ramping costs?

Sluggy · February 10

You could probably argue overtuned in some cases but you'd only call it busted if you never used it yourself. It's not like you could spam it indefinitely (not back then, today might be different but that's a whole other can of worms).

As the attacker you'd just wait for the timer to end and strike again, maybe test the waters with some light attacks. It's no more busted than every other thing that gets called out that isn't. And it's not like we don't still have the mechanic in the game available for everyone to use.

Tommy_The_Gun · February 11

It was not cuz on NBs. If you think about it, it was borderline game breaking to just casually deflect not just Bow Snipes or
Grim Focus bow proc but literately ultimates back the the attackers. If it was a well telegraphed ultimate (don't shoot me or you will die) then maybe... but Having a skill (not an ult) that can not just mitigate damage but also reflect 100% projectile damage back with all the scaling (not your scaling but using attacker stats) would be bonkers OP today. As far as I remember there were DK builds back then that were heavily focused on defence, but they were using this very skill (deflecting projectiles) to be able to kill players.

Avran_Sylt · February 11

Sluggy wrote: »

You could probably argue overtuned in some cases but you'd only call it busted if you never used it yourself. It's not like you could spam it indefinitely (not back then, today might be different but that's a whole other can of worms).

As the attacker you'd just wait for the timer to end and strike again, maybe test the waters with some light attacks. It's no more busted than every other thing that gets called out that isn't. And it's not like we don't still have the mechanic in the game available for everyone to use.

huh, wait light attacks wouldn't each any charges? I'd assume the counter would be to just spam light attacks to consume the charges... unless it was duration based and not charge based.

Avran_Sylt · February 11

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

It was not cuz on NBs. If you think about it, it was borderline game breaking to just casually deflect not just Bow Snipes or
Grim Focus bow proc but literately ultimates back the the attackers. If it was a well telegraphed ultimate (don't shoot me or you will die) then maybe... but Having a skill (not an ult) that can not just mitigate damage but also reflect 100% projectile damage back with all the scaling (not your scaling but using attacker stats) would be bonkers OP today. As far as I remember there were DK builds back then that were heavily focused on defence, but they were using this very skill (deflecting projectiles) to be able to kill players.

That is a fair point, essentially allowing tanks to deal DPS level damage. (perhaps if ever brought back it would reflect a % based on your stats... but in general stat stacking still favors stacking HP ion PvP)

Vaqual · February 11

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Classes should have more of these unique mechanics.

The most fun multiplayer games are those that are balanced around competing OP abilities that act as situational counters to each other. The least fun are those that watered-down mechanics so that everybody has their own skin of the same underlying abilities.

ESO seemed to have started out with the former and is definitely transitioning toward the latter.

To a degree yes. But ESO is also a roleplay game, where fun combat elements are not solely defining the experience. And some of ESOs ability and class designs are visually so horrendous, that I am actually glad to have alternatives that can allow a similar play style.
Ideally combat should be fair, fun and visually/thematically satisfying - while a meta with visually cluttered and ugly OP sets/abilities that work the same on every class is the least desirable.

But they have to draw the line somewhere of course and many OP gameplay mechs just don't pair well with cooldown-free abilities.

Being the devil's advocate at this point, that's why they have things like ramping costs?

Basically, yes. Let's say a DK with the old reflect is fighting a player with projectile based burst. The other player could not circumvent the cooldown-free denial of his burst, but at the same time be pressured by the retaliatory damage on each attempt. In such a scenario projectile based attacks would be at a large disadvantage, but there isn't a particular advantage to these attacks (besides being ranged), which would really justify running them if you could so easily stalemate them at will. The non-projectile based ranged attacks would form a narrow meta, making many projectile skills pointlessly risky options.

Another example that highlights the opposite: Major Evasion gives a huge mitigation bonus against AoE based burst, making it a valid option against attackers that rely on that. AoE is still worth running because you are much more effective against multiple targets. The buff is also circumventable by using single target damage, justifying its strength. Here the overall relationship in the respective power is much less lopsided.

To put a reflect and projectile based attacks into an appropriate balance without cooldown-based uptime management, cost ramps can be an option to help with forcing openings. This is why it is also not OP on an ultimate like spell wall, as the uptimes are naturally much lower or harder to maintain.

You could argue that it would be fine, players just have to accept that DK would in that case hard-counter most ranged setups - but DK isn't exactly a pushover in melee either. And at that point the designers just have to decide what is really healthy for the game. What contributes to the "Rock Paper Scissor" feeling of combat and what might be too universally beneficial. We still face issues like this in every patch though, so this is far from being just a thought experiment. Overall I like the idea of having a reflect, but without cooldown it is situationally just too potent.

Urzigurumash · February 11

It's much easier to sustain Race than old Rapids was, we can easily see how old Wings plus Race plus DKs 2021 Damage Buffs might be a bit much.

Sluggy · February 11

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Sluggy wrote: »

You could probably argue overtuned in some cases but you'd only call it busted if you never used it yourself. It's not like you could spam it indefinitely (not back then, today might be different but that's a whole other can of worms).

As the attacker you'd just wait for the timer to end and strike again, maybe test the waters with some light attacks. It's no more busted than every other thing that gets called out that isn't. And it's not like we don't still have the mechanic in the game available for everyone to use.

huh, wait light attacks wouldn't each any charges? I'd assume the counter would be to just spam light attacks to consume the charges... unless it was duration based and not charge based.

They would. But getting a light attack reflected in your face was better than a merciless lol. There were also many projectiles that didn't get reflected. Most of the ultimates weren't reflectable long before the removed the effect outright - which is fine. I didn't mind that even though meteor ping-pong was fun.

Honestly, that was the toughest part to keep up with since it changed just about every patch. And like I said, it probably was part of why they removed it. They were coming out with a new class who's spamable was supposed to be a projectile and they probably didn't want one more thing to consider. Hilariously enough it wasn't and still isn't to this day (that necro skull thing if you are curious btw).

At the end of the day they could have just reduced the number of reflectable objects and it would have been fine. Or add a ramping cost. Whatever. I made all of those arguments back in the day and now everyone has access to exactly that via Sword n Shield so I've mostly just gotten over it. But I really do like it when classes have very unique effects and mechanics that make them stand out as more than just 'the tanky class', 'the healy class', 'the bursty class'.

EDIT: To answer part of your question I missed - it was both. A timer and charges. It was up to six projectiles for the next six seconds. And if I recall correctly it cost around 4.5k mag which was a heck of a lot back at that time, especially in No-Cp. And I ran it on a stam DK with like 600 mag regen and maybe 9k total mag lol

Avran_Sylt · February 11

Sluggy wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Sluggy wrote: »

You could probably argue overtuned in some cases but you'd only call it busted if you never used it yourself. It's not like you could spam it indefinitely (not back then, today might be different but that's a whole other can of worms).

As the attacker you'd just wait for the timer to end and strike again, maybe test the waters with some light attacks. It's no more busted than every other thing that gets called out that isn't. And it's not like we don't still have the mechanic in the game available for everyone to use.

huh, wait light attacks wouldn't each any charges? I'd assume the counter would be to just spam light attacks to consume the charges... unless it was duration based and not charge based.

They would. But getting a light attack reflected in your face was better than a merciless lol. There were also many projectiles that didn't get reflected. Most of the ultimates weren't reflectable long before the removed the effect outright - which is fine. I didn't mind that even though meteor ping-pong was fun.

Honestly, that was the toughest part to keep up with since it changed just about every patch. And like I said, it probably was part of why they removed it. They were coming out with a new class who's spamable was supposed to be a projectile and they probably didn't want one more thing to consider. Hilariously enough it wasn't and still isn't to this day (that necro skull thing if you are curious btw).

At the end of the day they could have just reduced the number of reflectable objects and it would have been fine. Or add a ramping cost. Whatever. I made all of those arguments back in the day and now everyone has access to exactly that via Sword n Shield so I've mostly just gotten over it. But I really do like it when classes have very unique effects and mechanics that make them stand out as more than just 'the tanky class', 'the healy class', 'the bursty class'.

EDIT: To answer part of your question I missed - it was both. A timer and charges. It was up to six projectiles for the next six seconds. And if I recall correctly it cost around 4.5k mag which was a heck of a lot back at that time, especially in No-Cp. And I ran it on a stam DK with like 600 mag regen and maybe 9k total mag lol

huh 6 for 6s at 4.5k. that do be a bit prohibitive.

the current flame damage back at the attacker based on offensive stats more or less functions as you'd expect a % reflect based on stats, so I guess that's fine, perhaps just not so mechanically distinct.

NyassaV · February 11

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

2019. My recollection is that the change was mostly motivated by glass cannon Nightblades one shotting themselves.

Back then almost everyone had between 20k HP and 25k HP. That was just the norm. It was motivated purely by the fact that all of magblades ranged abilities were projectiles. But the other reason they removed it? Elemental weapon was coming out with Summerset in a few months... Gotta make sure that ability is good so will buy the new expansion and use the psijic abilities.

If it wasn't for Summerset I suspect they would've just changed Swallow Soul to not be a projectile.

Sluggy · February 11

NyassaV wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

2019. My recollection is that the change was mostly motivated by glass cannon Nightblades one shotting themselves.

Back then almost everyone had between 20k HP and 25k HP. That was just the norm. It was motivated purely by the fact that all of magblades ranged abilities were projectiles. But the other reason they removed it? Elemental weapon was coming out with Summerset in a few months... Gotta make sure that ability is good so will buy the new expansion and use the psijic abilities.

If it wasn't for Summerset I suspect they would've just changed Swallow Soul to not be a projectile.

They didn't remove it for Summerset. They removed it just before Elsweyr, it was either during Murkmire or the patch right after. The details are a bit fuzzy for me. I was playing a Hybrid DK at the time mostly motivated by the fact that I wanted stronger burst heals and the ability to use Wings more on an otherwise melee-oriented DK. It was a kiss curse: I got a much better whip but lost the reflect on wings.

Amottica · February 11

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Classes should have more of these unique mechanics.

The most fun multiplayer games are those that are balanced around competing OP abilities that act as situational counters to each other. The least fun are those that watered-down mechanics so that everybody has their own skin of the same underlying abilities.

ESO seemed to have started out with the former and is definitely transitioning toward the latter.

But this skill was not a situational counter. One could keep very high uptime. That is not how a situational counter should work.

I am not suggesting I do not like the idea of a reflect skill but it should be very costly or prohibitive in another manner to make it impossible to keep it up.

Sluggy · February 12

Amottica wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Classes should have more of these unique mechanics.

The most fun multiplayer games are those that are balanced around competing OP abilities that act as situational counters to each other. The least fun are those that watered-down mechanics so that everybody has their own skin of the same underlying abilities.

ESO seemed to have started out with the former and is definitely transitioning toward the latter.

But this skill was not a situational counter. One could keep very high uptime. That is not how a situational counter should work.

I am not suggesting I do not like the idea of a reflect skill but it should be very costly or prohibitive in another manner to make it impossible to keep it up.

So to list some of the suggestions I made at the time in no particular order:

Ramping cost
Reduce total number of projectiles reflected
Use a damage shield as a means of determining how much damage is mitigated instead of 100%
Half the time it's active to make it more reflex-based
Reduce the damage of reflected attacks by the DK's damage mitigations so that they can be glassy and get a large effect or tanky and a small effect
Tell magblades to harden the f up, mate

Urzigurumash · February 12

NyassaV wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

2019. My recollection is that the change was mostly motivated by glass cannon Nightblades one shotting themselves.

Back then almost everyone had between 20k HP and 25k HP. That was just the norm. It was motivated purely by the fact that all of magblades ranged abilities were projectiles. But the other reason they removed it? Elemental weapon was coming out with Summerset in a few months... Gotta make sure that ability is good so will buy the new expansion and use the psijic abilities.

If it wasn't for Summerset I suspect they would've just changed Swallow Soul to not be a projectile.

Is the damage from Elemental Weapon reflected by Spell Wall? What about Enchants from a Light Attack? Are either buffed by the Eagle Eye set?

Imho sDK was fairly unique in being able to play effectively at 30k Health back in the 4 Class years, its crazy to me how many people thought the Knight Class and the Rogue Class should be at the same health and same armor weight. (reflections on the past, i like the anything goes flexibility of today).

Sluggy · February 12

Urzigurumash wrote: »

NyassaV wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

2019. My recollection is that the change was mostly motivated by glass cannon Nightblades one shotting themselves.

Back then almost everyone had between 20k HP and 25k HP. That was just the norm. It was motivated purely by the fact that all of magblades ranged abilities were projectiles. But the other reason they removed it? Elemental weapon was coming out with Summerset in a few months... Gotta make sure that ability is good so will buy the new expansion and use the psijic abilities.

If it wasn't for Summerset I suspect they would've just changed Swallow Soul to not be a projectile.

Is the damage from Elemental Weapon reflected by Spell Wall? What about Enchants from a Light Attack? Are either buffed by the Eagle Eye set?

Imho sDK was fairly unique in being able to play effectively at 30k Health back in the 4 Class years, its crazy to me how many people thought the Knight Class and the Rogue Class should be at the same health and same armor weight. (reflections on the past, i like the anything goes flexibility of today).

The last time I checked Imbue Weapon and enchants were not considered projectiles and they would go through. But admittedly it's been a while for me. Things might be different.

Xvorg · February 13

RebornV3x wrote: »

If I remember it could reflect Meteor and Crystal Frags it was a hard counter to Sorcs.

It was the best of the times.

Also remember when you could pretty much jump from a keep's wall to the inner wall by stacking fiery grip and dragon leap

all those memories will be lost... like flames in the standard

Xvorg · February 13

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

2019. My recollection is that the change was mostly motivated by glass cannon Nightblades one shotting themselves.

I mean. Yeah. Wasn't that kinda the point?

Though since I was that same glass-cannon NB that was mostly doing PvE at the time I don't really recall how well "balanced" the skill was. My opinion on it now would be it's something like a high cost ability that's resource intensive with only a short window where it can actually reflect (only a few or just one projectile with a lingering buff) and a healthy telegraph while respecting the travel time/audio of any reflected projectile. (which sounds like a massive pita to maintain)

RebornV3x wrote: »

If I remember it could reflect Meteor and Crystal Frags it was a hard counter to Sorcs.

Meteor's an AoE though? Not Single-Target Direct Damage Projectile, so unsure why it'd reflect that. And I'd assume (now, not sure about back then) that consistently reflecting Frags should mean they exhaust their Magicka in short order so as to not be able to continuously reflect the projectile.

It used to reflect all the projectiles shot at you, At the time, meteor had 2 components, the projectile, and after it landed, the AoE. Different fom arrow spray, which was an AoE from the start.

At the time te issue was "DK to stronk!", "DK too much life, too much heal, too much utility", "DK master race". The thing is that DK always suffered from resource management. If you were good tha that, then the class was good (though sort of a jack of all trades). If not, it was pure suffering