Skill Line Rework? 2025

Radiate77 · November 27

After an incredible race, we have our 3 Classes to break apart!

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/685625/class-rework-2025/p1

Now that we know which classes need a rework most, let’s find out what part of each that we find most offensive.

Down below, feel free to vote on whichever Skill Line that you guys feel is either too strong, too weak, or once again… too weird.

This poll will continue to be anonymous, that said, I look forward to hearing your reasons why these classes made top 3! 😁

WuffyCerulei · November 27

Free Crystal Frags from Dark Magic

Drakath_24 · November 27

Dark magic doesnt add anything to any build (no passives or fun gameplay).
I wouldn't mind it as well if Daedric Summoning becomes a second Mages Guild-line. The summoning part is fun, but a waist of barspace for support-rolls.

Sorc needs 2 better skill lines.

Radiate77 · November 27

Drakath_24 wrote: »

I wouldn't mind it as well if Daedric Summoning becomes a second Mages Guild-line. The summoning part is fun, but a waist of barspace for support-rolls.

I like this idea! I have always been a fan of the idea of bringing back the Schools of Magic in ESO, the problem is that they missed their perfect opportunity with Spellcrafting.

BasP · November 27

Dark Magic got my vote, though most of those skill lines have certain skills or passives that I'd personally like to see reworked.

When it comes to Dark Magic, I just don't understand why Exploitation only grants Minor Prophecy, whereas its counterpart - Assassination's Hemorrhage - grants Minor Savagery and increases Critical Damage by 10%. It seems reasonable to add a second buff like that to Exploitation as well. I like the idea of either increasing Direct Damage or Critical Chance by X%, but something else would be great too.

I think Blood Magic is another passive that could be improved a little bit. I'm just not a fan of having to be at full Health to gain the 10% increased Max Stamina or Magicka, especially since that buff nor the skill line as a whole is particularly strong. Personally, I think it’d be fine if the bonus activated whenever you cast a Dark Magic ability, regardless of your Health.

Finally, I’d love to see more of this skill line become relevant for PvE damage dealers. Outside of Crystal Frags, very little is useful. I think it would be fun if one morph of Daedric Mines, for example, became a viable delayed burst option. It would also be nice if one morph of Negate Magic became more viable for PvE, in my opinion, as that could help round out the skill line.

Marto · November 27

Dark Magic is a relic of a game that hasn't existed since 2015.

It features such nonsense as:

Silence, a debuff that was only relevant in PVP, and only before class skills started to get stamina morphs around 2015-2016.
3 crowd control abilities. Which I'm sure was very strong before CC immunity was introduced to the game. But now it's just unnecessary.
An ability to help you exchange stamina, magicka and health. Something that has become very unnecessary with the high-recovery and low costs of the post Update 35 and post CP 2.0 game.
Reduce cost passive. Which, again, only made sense when ability costs were a much bigger deal. And before all the standardization.
A non-hybradized crit chance buff, despite 99.99% of crit sources being hybradized.

I don't think there's anything in that skill line worth keeping besides Crystal Shard and 1 of the CC skills. The rest is better off being replaced by something new.

Radiate77 · November 27

I was very unhappy when Daedric Minefield was turned into a skill that provides shields.

Radiate77 · November 27

As #1 on the previous poll, I’m quite surprised our Necromancer skill lines have not been getting votes.

Marto · November 27

Radiate77 wrote: »

As #1 on the previous poll, I’m quite surprised our Necromancer skill lines have not been getting votes.

Nearly all of the Necromancer skills are fine, function wise. They have problems with damage/healing numbers, duration, and some of the synergy and functions of passives.

Necromancer needs work. But nothing that would be considered a rework.

Sorcerer has many skills that have no clear use scenario or purpose. Specially in Dark Magic and to a lesser degree Daedric Summoning.

Radiate77 · November 27

Marto wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

As #1 on the previous poll, I’m quite surprised our Necromancer skill lines have not been getting votes.

Nearly all of the Necromancer skills are fine, function wise. They have problems with damage/healing numbers, duration, and some of the synergy and functions of passives.

Necromancer needs work. But nothing that would be considered a rework.

Have you had a chance to read through the results and comments from the previous poll, tagged in the OP? You might find it enlightening.

moderatelyfatman · November 27

It's a real pity the devs never thought about this before they launched into subclassing.

Gabriel_H · November 27

BasP wrote: »

When it comes to Dark Magic, I just don't understand why Exploitation only grants Minor Prophecy, whereas its counterpart - Assassination's Hemorrhage - grants Minor Savagery and increases Critical Damage by 10%.

One is on demand, the other relies on a proc. Also the other passives as a whole need to be considered.

Radiate77 · November 27

So far, from the data we’ve gathered, while Necromancer and Nightblade need attention in 2-3 skill lines… Sorcerer appears to be an easy fix.

Interesting.

Turtle_Bot · November 28

Radiate77 wrote: »

Marto wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

As #1 on the previous poll, I’m quite surprised our Necromancer skill lines have not been getting votes.

Nearly all of the Necromancer skills are fine, function wise. They have problems with damage/healing numbers, duration, and some of the synergy and functions of passives.

Necromancer needs work. But nothing that would be considered a rework.

Have you had a chance to read through the results and comments from the previous poll, tagged in the OP? You might find it enlightening.

As surprising as this sounds, I'm not surprised specific Necro lines aren't getting as many votes as a line like Dark Magic. As a Sorc main who has been playing a lot more Necro recently, the current skills (for what they actually are as skills, less so as a class fantasy) seem fine outside of numbers and clunky corpse interactions.

Archer/mage only need a slight duration/damage increase - (numbers tweak)
Blastbones (blighted morph) is good
Mender is good
Boneyard is good
Skulls just needs faster projectiles/cast animations
Armor buff is good
Colossus is good
Goliath is good
Burst heal needs a slight increase in base healing done to account for the self debuff it inflicts
Resurrect just needs bugs fixed
etc.

What (imo) Necro needs as a rework is more to do with the whole class rather than any specific line.
- Corpse mechanic itself (I would allow Necro summons to also be treated as corpses for the other abilities)
- Class fantasy (more summon armies of undead theme instead of death mage theme)
- Baseline numbers (not need corpses just to reach baseline values, instead corpses provide additional benefits)

- Allowing Necro Summons to be treated as corpses removes the clunkiness that is double casting corpse generators to have a corpse to get going, but also removes the clunkiness of things like tether that become worse and worse the more mobile ESO encounters become.
- Class fantasy could be filled with more appropriate visuals. Less soul/magic like glowing effects, more bones/flesh/rot effects, e.g. the tethers could be the same ability they currently are but with zombie limbs sprouting out of the AoE instead of the flashing lightning beams they currently have, that really should belong to Sorcerer abilities, (think visuals like the NPC necro abilities and the NPC zombie abilities have). Mender is (imo) a perfect example of getting this right, the main visual is the floating spirit, then it does a small faint ghostly beam every time it heals that still gives visual cues of the ability doing its thing, while not detracting from its main ghostly theme.
- Baseline numbers is literally as simple as it sounds. Corpses should be the payoff mechanic, not the mechanic to bring things up to the baseline.

Compare this to something like Dark Magic where every ability feels not only clunky, but also outdated and with no real payoff/reason to use them (minimal/no/useless secondary effects, awkward cast times that unlike channels force you to wait to see/have/feel anything happen when using them, etc.).
Then there's the other big issue of the Sorc lines being so intermixed it makes it nearly impossible to lean into a certain aspect/theme of the class while being able to interact with systems like sub-classing. e.g. the class spammable (frags) is in Dark Magic and the best class DoTs (familiar/tormentor) are in Daedric Summoning, but the Sorc "DPS" line with all the DPS passives is Storm Calling. This issue just makes every sorc line feel bad to take/incomplete as their own lines, in an ESO that has the current form of sub-classing.

Sorc as a whole class needs a rework/update to fit into modern ESO, but Dark Magic is also such a bad line in its own right, that it doesn't surprise me it's getting so many votes when voters are limited to picking a single line.

P.s. I'll do a more in-depth comment later for each of the lines individually, since there are really good (and differing) cases/reasons for all of them to get different kinds of reworks/adjustments.

Anumaril · November 28

Voted Grave Lord for the same reason I voted Necromancer in the last post, but I'll admit that Dark Magic could use some love. Even years ago when I played Sorc (before Necro's release) I had virtually no Dark Magic skills in my builds, maaaaybe one or two for overland/questing/RP type builds, but otherwise nothing for any serious gameplay like dungeons.

Most skills are crowd-control abilities clearly meant for PvP, yet even in those contexts they feel a bit lack-lustre since you effectively are wasting one of your precious few ability slots on a snare/root (or runes on the ground, which players just avoid and NPCs are too robotic to ever run into) when you could use that slot on something to boost your survivability or damage. The only exception to this is probably the Dark Bargain skill, which not only feels really cool to use (I'm surprised its not a Necro skill tbh) but has good utility, although I've not played Sorc in many years so maybe its less useful now than it used to be.

Radiate77 · November 28

Grave Lord is rising from the dead! 💀

Turtle_Bot · December 1

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

P.s. I'll do a more in-depth comment later for each of the lines individually, since there are really good (and differing) cases/reasons for all of them to get different kinds of reworks/adjustments.

A more in-depth write-up on the individual lines:

Necro:
Covered the basics for the class in the above post, but a few more details for each line/ability:

Gravelord:
- Skulls needs a projectile speed increase and a faster cast animation. This would help it feel less clunky to weave while giving it more reliability in PvP.
- Shocking Siphon needs to be self cast with the ability to link to a corpse (or necro summon) if cast with 1 available/targeted.
- GLS feels like it should be part of 1 tether morph instead of on what used to be the mag version of blastbones. This was a recent change though and we all know what happens (or doesn't happen) with such changes players don't like (looks at jabs).
Bone Tyrant:
- Grave Grasp could use some work, overlap the circles more, make them come out faster or simply make it more like DK talons (AoE around the caster).
- Totem could maybe use a taunt (maybe even be an AoE taunt for X number of enemies prioritizing dangerous enemies first (main boss then mini boss then adds), giving necro tanking some niche).
Living Death:
- Either remove the self-defile on render flesh or increase the base healing of this ability to account for this debuff. Maybe a rework to be more like Sorc Matriarch to lean more into the summoner aspect that necro is known for in fantasy games.
- Restoring Tether - see Shocking Siphon above.
Outside of this, Necro just needs what I previously mentioned, that being base damage/healing values brought up to standard without needing corpse to reach this with corpses being the payoff for secondary effects/bonuses to make them worth using.

Nightblade:
Mostly needs a numbers adjustment, but there are a few abilities in need of adjusting.

Assassination:
Outside of Spec Bow, this line mostly just needs numbers adjustments and for the crit chance be exclusive for DPS only, not DPS and healing.
- Spec Bow needs a complete rework that keeps it at it's current power for PvE, but massively tones down the burst and frequency of burst for PvP. At the absolute bare minimum, this ability needs the burst heal completely removed from it as that heal makes this ability a 1 button do everything.
- Crit Chance (Master Assassin and Pressure Points), we are currently in a crit meta and this line currently provides the biggest crit chance increases this game has ever seen that is unmatched by any other DPS line, especially in PvP where the "flanking" mechanic is basically active all the time thanks to positional desync and the current insane base speed values players have.
- Building onto the Crit Chance point above, this line should only be buffing crit chance for damage, not both damage and healing. This is why this line is so overpowered and is near mandatory in PvP where healing is currently the best form of defense. This is why this line is stronger than lines such as Storm Calling and Aedric Spear, because those don't buff the already overtuned healing that exists in this game where this line does.
Siphoning:
This line is mostly fine as is. Insanely good for solo play and has a niche for Ulti-gen builds.
Shadow:
This line is in an unfortunate spot. It is insanely strong for a selfish tanking build, but such a build is not good for group content where tanks are expected to mostly be buff/debuff-bots for DPS that also taunt the boss. As such, it rarely sees use since it's niche is just not useful in the current game where such a role (tank) is needed.
- The only ability from this line I would say needs a rework is the ultimate, Consuming Darkness. Major Protection is too easy to obtain now to be the main focus of a costly ultimate and the secondary effects (despite how strong the heal of the synergy is) doesn't do enough to warrant the cost it has. A unique PvE debuff based around the shadow theme would be worth looking into.
Nightblade is mostly fine, design wise outside of a couple of abilities. Mostly just in need of numbers adjustments.

Sorcerer:
As mentioned on the previous thread, there's a lot to unpack with Sorcerer and since it is nearly impossible that we see sub-classing reverted or ZOS go ahead and adjust every other class to be more intermixed like Sorcerer, this makes sense that Sorcerer needs to most work to update it for modern ESO.

To start with, Sorc lines need better defining and as such better splitting up into those defined roles.

This first spoiler would be just splitting the abilities into the lines respective roles and wouldn't need much reworking outside shifting abilities/passives/effects around, except the Dark Magic line that actually needs reworks to multiple abilities beyond just shifting things around.

Daedric Summoning:

Swap Curse to Dark Magic, bringing Daedric Mines into Daedric Summoning. (simple swap of abilities)
Bonus to pets from Daedric Prey moved to the Expert Summoner passive to keep it within the "pet" line. (simple shift of effects)

Dark Magic:

Curse added to this line and given breach replacing Daedric Mines that moved to Daedric Summoning. (simple move and update)
Frags moved to Storm Calling, Bolt Escape moved to here. (simple swap of abilities)
Rune Cage reworked into a DoT/HoT with a taunt. (full rework of this ability and morphs)
Encase reworked so that the delayed damage/burst heal from the morphs are on a synergy and the primary focus of this ability is AoE CC. (full rework of this ability)
Negate reworked, 1 morph now prevents casting any ability (does not impact core combat such as block/roll/sprint etc.) other morph reworked into a PvE morph. (full rework of this ability)
Exploiter passive added into Expert Mage passive in storm calling line replaced with new tank/healer passive (armor or something). (full rework of this passive)
Wonky activation conditions for max mag/stam removed from blood magic passive. (fixing up of this passive)

Storm Calling:

Frags moved to this line, placed in 1st slot. (simple swap of abilities)
Fury moved to 3rd slot. (simple swap of abilities)
Lightning Splash moved to 5th slot. (simple swap of abilities)
Bolt Escape moved to Dark Magic. (simple swap of abilities)
Exploitation passive added to Expert Mage passive to bring it up to par with NB Hemorrhage passive. (simple move/combination of passives)

This second spoiler would be a full rework (including complete role split and changing/redesigning/new, abilities/passives) of all sorc lines, focusing much more on letting those themes fit better into specific roles to better synergize with systems like scribing while also reworking the shifted abilities to match each lines theme after moving them around. This results in a lot more changes/reworks to many more abilities across all 3 lines.

[*] Daedric Summoning:
Ideally this line would reduce the summoner aspect of Sorcerer from having multiple summons that get buffed by the other abilities (let that be Necro's class fanatasy) and have this line focus on support abilities buffed by having the 1 familiar active to empower the other abilities. Probably the healer role since most of the class heals (matriarch, clanfear and ward) are all in this line, but I could see this being the tank line too with different changes to below.

Summon Familiar, I would keep this as the only true Summon of the Sorcerer class, having it provide a buff that empowers/grants secondary effects to other Sorcerer abilities while it is alive (similar to corpses/crux aspects of Necro/Arc respectively).
Curse, move this to dark magic (since that fits better with that theme) and replace it with mines. This way mines can be the "group heal" of Sorc healing line but with shields instead of heals. If cast while familiar is active, there are additional runes summoned around the familiar as well as around the caster.
Twilight, make this into a heal over time that is instant cast and has a duration, similar to spirit mender, where it's more of a visual effect rather than a full blown summon. Have it provide some utility/support while active and gain a secondary effect if cast while familiar is alive.
Conjured Ward, the class "burst heal", while it technically doesn't heal, it provides a buffer to the health pool for heal over time effects to do their thing. Only potential change I could think of for it would be to have it grant a small self heal over time while active if it was cast while the familiar is alive.
Bound Armor, make this a group buff ability (e.g. armaments summons daggers above you and nearby allies granting them a 5% bonus to direct damage done for 15 seconds, aegis summons armor around you and nearby allies granting them 5% mitigation against direct damage for 15 seconds).
Atro could be more of a visual effect (like colossus) than a full summon, that grants the caster Major berserk when activated, but the synergy remains as is and grants the group major berserk. This one I struggled to keep it's theme while figuring out how to make it a "healing" ultimate. This is the ability that makes me think this line could have been for the tank role instead of the healer role.
Passives need updating to better reflect the supportive nature this role would focus on, rather than just being outdated sustain passives.

[*] Storm Calling:
This would be Sorcerers DPS line and while the passives are good, there's only really 1 morph of 1 active ability worth slotting from this line (for a DPS role), so that's where I would focus mainly for this line.

Mages Fury, make this the class spammable, have it be a regular ranged spammable that switches to an execute at low health. Make the mag morph chain to 1-2 nearby enemies (similar to force pulse) and the other morph into a wind based ability that deals physical damage so that stamsorc gets a themed spammable as well.
Lightning Form, Hurricane is fine as is, Boundless needs updating (increased radius, base damage, etc.) to bring it up to par with hurricane.
Lightning Splash, this ability has gotten a bit better over the past year, but is still lacking. Have it provide the unique buff/debuff for shock damage that flame and frost damage already have via DK/warden/sets. Make one morph into a stamina ability that is wind themed and deals physical damage.
Surge, crit surge is fine as is, power surge could use some changes though. Have power surge grant an effect while active similar to the class script (or storm cursed set) where anytime you deal crit damage with a storm calling ability, you deal a small bonus AoE proc of shock damage. That way you have crit surge for an offense/defense mix of small heal on crit damage or power surge for full DPS with a small bonus proc when dealing crit damage.
Bolt Escape, rework the streak morph to be the class AoE "spammable", it would no longer teleport the caster or stun enemies (ball of lightning keeps the teleport), but streak would have reduced cost, no ramping cost, deal significantly more damage and have a PvE specific DPS buff/debuff. This separates the teleport from the DPS aspect of this ability, better defining the morphs into PvE and PvP morphs. Increase the snare immunity of the Ball of Lightning morph to 4 seconds to match other snare immunity abilities (or reduce those to 2 seconds to match BoL).
Overload needs a complete rework to 1 morph since both morphs are too similar to each other. Maybe the Power Overload morph could be a non-toggle ultimate that deals massive damage in a big (12m) AoE around the caster with a stun on enemies hit or it could be a big chain lightning similar to the Aetherian Archive final boss mechanic (just with appropriate numbers for a player cast ultimate)
Have Capacitor passive also grant 0.5/1% damage done for non-channeled direct damage abilities per Storm Calling ability slotted.
Rework Amplitude passive, make it buff proc chance and damage of concussed and sundered status effects and (with a cooldown) inflicts the other when inflicting one of those status effects.
Amplitude
Increase the Chance to inflict Concussed and Sundered Status effects by 50/100% and increase the damage these status effects deal by 5/10%.
Inflicting Concussed on a target also inflicts Sundered on that target. Inflicting Sundered on a target also inflicts Concussed on that target. This has a 10/5 second cooldown.
Expert Mage has the Exploiter passive added to it to bring it up to par with NB Hemorrhage passive.

Note that while these changes seem like massive buffs, keep in mind that Amplitude no longer grants it's unique up to +10% damage done to enemies based on their current health, which is a big reduction in DPS that needs making up for to keep this line relevant.
[*] Dark Magic:
A lot of changes here, almost an entirely new line (even more than storm calling) and with Curse being moved to this line, this line would have 3 delayed burst abilities on top of it's already 3 CCs and too many sustain effects. My changes here would make this line the "Tank" line, but I could also see this being the healer line if Daedric Summoning would be the Tank line instead.

Crystal Shard, with fury now being the spammable and in the DPS line, this ability can focus more on the ability enhancement + debuff aspect that crystal weapon is designed around. This would be the class source of breach + taunt with 1 morph providing unique armor reduction bonus and the other morph granting a unique armor bonus to mimic the offense/defense split that bound armor used to have.
Encase, make this the class AoE CC. Let this ability focus entirely on being CC/support now that the Streak morph of bolt escape is the Sorc class AoE DPS ability. Have the damage/heal of this ability be a synergy allies can use instead of just on a delay.
Rune Prison, Delete this ability for a completely new ability.
Runic Shroud:
Encase yourself in Arcane Runes to protect yourself. Reduce damage taken of the next direct damage attack made on you by 50%.
Unstable Rune (Morph 1):
Upon taking direct damage the rune explodes dealing X magic damage to enemies within 7m. Taunted enemies take 15% more damage. Damage is based on your resistances.
Stable Arcane Absorption (Morph 2):
Now applies to the next 2 direct damage attacks (1 attack per second max). Reducing damage with this ability heals you for Y health and reduces the cost of your next Dark Magic ability by 15%.
Exchange, make it a 0.8s channel instead of a 1s cast time. The heal is instant upon starting the channel, the sustain is still delayed and doesn't occur until the channel is complete. Grants minor berserk + minor force to the group.
Curse (moved here from daedric summoning replacing daedric mines). Renamed to Arcane Curse.
Arcane Curse:
Cast an ancient Arcane curse on your enemy, dealing X direct damage every 2 seconds and increasing their direct damage taken by 10% for 15 seconds.
Curse of Silence (Morph 1):
After 5 seconds, the target is also inflicted with "Silence" for 5 seconds, preventing them from casting abilities that cost magicka (does not affect core combat mechanics such as block, roll, sprint, crouch, etc.).
Fatiguing Curse (Morph 2):
After 5 seconds, the target is also inflicted with "Fatigued" for 5 seconds, preventing them from casting abilities that cost stamina (does not affect core combat mechanics such as block, roll, sprint, crouch, etc.)
Negate needs a rework for PvE. It fills it's niche in PvP just fine, but is completely useless in PvE since all important enemies that this would see use against are completely immune to it.
Negate Magic:
Same as Current.
Draining Field (Morph 1):
Create a globe of suppressing magic at the target location for 12 seconds, removing and preventing all enemy area of effect abilities from occurring in the area.
Enemies within the globe are stunned, while enemy players are Silenced and Fatigued rather than stunned.
The globe also damages enemies for 1038 magic damage every 1 second.
Alteration Field (Morph 2):
Create a globe of Alteration magic that warps reality within. While standing within the globe, you are healed for 1038 health per second and take 10% less damage from non-player enemies. Non-player enemies within the globe are stunned, take 1038 damage each second and take 10% increased damage.
Unholy Knowledge is fine as is
Blood Magic just remove the clunky condition for the max mag/stam
Persistance is fine as is (for a tank) could use a rework if this line would be the healer line instead
Exploitation would become a brand new passive

Something to point out, since it seems like I am removing all delayed burst from Sorcerer, is that the reworked Amplitude passive to double proc status effects + power surge bonus proc + fury now being a full spammable above 20% health with it's proc for targets that fall below 20% with the ability to weave in overload light attacks and potentially Lightning Splash self synergy (now with debuff increasing shock damage taken), that combine to become the "delayed burst" (death by 1000 cuts all landing at the same time, rather than 2-3 big cuts). This delayed burst also comes with the bonus of higher frequency compared to other bursts (should "line up" every 4-5 seconds compared to most others lining up their bigger hits between 5-10 seconds on average)

Radiate77 · December 2

Alright, now that we know Class Reworks are officially coming, these polls just got a lot more meaningful!

ShutUpitsRed · December 2

I still can't believe they took minor force off of Dark Deal, like the only reason to use Dark Magic lol.

ZhuJiuyin · December 3

Radiate77 wrote: »

Alright, now that we know Class Reworks are officially coming, these polls just got a lot more meaningful!

Or it could become another slap in the face from the developers to the players.

Looking towards U35 and U46...

Radiate77 · December 3

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Alright, now that we know Class Reworks are officially coming, these polls just got a lot more meaningful!

Or it could become another slap in the face from the developers to the players.

Looking towards U35 and U46...

Sorry I just don’t see any possible way for these upcoming changes to rival Update 35 and Update 46 gave us unrivaled freedom to customize our characters in a Roleplaying Game.

They would need to take away from the classes to meet Update 35 levels of bad, and that is not their stated goal, then again, Vengeance was just a test so what do I know.

ZhuJiuyin · December 3

Don't get me wrong, I have no complaints about the subclasses, but I'm dissatisfied with the balance, which I think is a common pain point for most people—poor balance.

Of course, I hope ZOS can achieve its goal of balancing the classes in the next few updates, but during U46-U48, too many players raised this issue during the PTS, yet received very little response from ZOS, sometimes even receiving the opposite change.

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