Official Discussion Thread for "Leaping into the Dragonknight Class Refresh"

Ratzkifal · January 9

Some thoughts:

"Blood of the Green Dragon" is a long and unwieldy name. Change it to Green Dragon's Blood and Elder Dragon's Blood please.
Giving every class their own unique version of Arcanist beam sounds like a good solution to making it less mandatory to be an Arcanist in PvE. Love that.
Protect the Brood is horribly named, because in TES lore Dragons don't have children. There is no "brood" that needs protecting. We can chalk it up to mortals having misconceptions about dragons, sure, but let's not give players the same misconceptions please. Also I feel like the Minor Protection could be permanently active, since it kind of sucks in PvP to use a crowd control ability just to refresh your own passives. Either that or a unique mitigation buff so it is incentivised to really only be used when you are already in trouble.
The Storm Voice is also weirdly named. "Battle Roar" is better for what the effect does.
Love the Corrosive Armor change. Elf-Bane + Corrosive sounds like a fun interaction. The nerf to its defensive power is justified but seems fine in the context of the other changes. Now this one would do with a name change now that it's no longer poison/acid themed. How about... Incandescent Armor?
Magma Fist sounds good. Hope it feels smoother to play as well. It certainly reads like it would. I like it.
Molten Weapons - fun change! And it always looked like that's what that ability would do but it didn't. Very good change.
Not feeling the changes to Petrify.
Mountain Giant seems more intuitive now.

SneaK · January 9

Jestir wrote: »

SneaK wrote: »

Red_Feather wrote: »

Does it say what makes playing a pure dragonknight more effective than just subclassing. I read the article but I skimmed over a lot of it as it just looked like skill changes and passive changes.

A pure DK won’t be more effective than subclassing because EH is still weak. The new avalanche passive doesn’t sound that good and the skills within EH are lackluster. Corrosive might be big, but there’s a lot of dmg ults out there to choose from.

Also, in a trial group the lack of any sort of penetration or crit damage passive is going to continue to hurt the class significantly

A pure class will never be BiS anymore, we just need to accept that I think. But what I’m not happy about is there are still BiS skill lines, specifically Storm Calling. We will just have to endure a year of Hurricane Streaking DKs until they do something about Sorc skill lines. Cause they missed the mark on Earthen Heart.

Hamish999 · January 9

On first look as a DK main for over 8 years. This looks awful. Moving skills around just for the sake of it, losing poison from the DK's toolkit completely, shortening DOTS (long DOTs has always been a DK meta) and more just doesn't sit right with me.

It looks like the devs have just moved stuff around to make a skill line viable instead of actually buffing the skill line as it was.

And I also think ZOS should have just held their hands up and said " We screwed up and didn't realise subclassing was going to completely shift the power balance as much as it did. From now on you can only switch in 1 skill line from outside your base class". Though I have had a load of fun trying out different things with subclassing.

I'll wait and see how things shake out once it hits PTS and we get more feedback and videos etc. I don't use the PTS as ZOS in their wisdom never do PC EU character copies until at least half way through the cycle. Maybe something else to look at going forward.

Now to see if Nick is true to his word and will listen to the players and implement changes through the PTS cycle. Fingers crossed, he seems to love the game and want it to succeed.

The new animations look nice though. Oh and Stone Giant has been changed, no longer throwing poop rocks is good, but I'll still never use, it just out of spite lol.

Ezhh · January 9

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Some thoughts:
Giving every class their own unique version of Arcanist beam sounds like a good solution to making it less mandatory to be an Arcanist in PvE. Love that.

Please no. Many of us who don't want to play beam hate or are fed up with the slow playstyle. If all this rework provides is effectively different coloured beam options, there's no point at all.

Froil · January 9

While I did read the entire article, I also stopped midway through and continued later, I don't really remember seeing a direct instant heal ability especially since Obsidian Shard is becoming a shield with a heal on it, although maybe that's what the new Dragon Blood is becoming?

For the most part the changes for tanks and supports seem great and I've always had a soft spot for DK healers over any other spec and it seems as though they'll finally be able to have some more unique utilities, at least for now. I suppose we'll have to see what all the other refreshes will do.

I don't currently see much of a difference between the new Superheated Ward and Obsidian Shield, though I'm guessing SW is a single target, stronger, smart (choosing lower health allies over full health) shield, whereas Obsidian likely remains a weaker but AOE shield.

SilverBride · January 9

I'm not happy that I will have to redo the builds of all of my characters one by one because of a feature (subclassing) I didn't even want. There is nothing I hate more than theorycrafting so now I will have to hope I can find some good builds and not have to change all my armor.

Malyore · January 9

Ezhh wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Some thoughts:
Giving every class their own unique version of Arcanist beam sounds like a good solution to making it less mandatory to be an Arcanist in PvE. Love that.

Please no. Many of us who don't want to play beam hate or are fed up with the slow playstyle. If all this rework provides is effectively different coloured beam options, there's no point at all.

Just to counter, I like having the option of channeled aoe beams. I'd never have wanted a class change tokens (which ZOS turned into mulit/subclassing) if I could just channel a big lightning attack out of my sorcerer (they could have just turned overload into a longer and less clunky beam and I'd be happy)
Everyone has different tastes. As long as the options are implemented well, I am all for each class having the options for both faster or slower styles of gameplay while both being effective.

Wup_sa · January 9

So far it looks like molten whip playstyle is killed off from PvP and we are left with good old lash builds and a weird firebreath build, but will have to wait till pts to see how the abilities work.

On the other hand though, there was too much and completely unnecessary skill swaps (spiked armor, ash cloud, fire breath, etc). The passives seem rather weak in terms of damage (nothing was changed just suffeled) and the very hyped Avalance passive seems very underwhelming, only 10% more dmg, 20% would not even put it close to subclasses monsters.

Also DK seems to continue to have the worst sustain out of all pure classes, since sustain was not buffed at all. Combustion passive should at least be brought 1000k stam and mag every 2.25 s.

So far it would be necessary to add more damage, defense and sustain to the passives, since the rework seems to make all of those very lackluster and other classes have much better passives for those.

kiheikat · January 9

Feels like ordering at a Chinese restaurant where they've taken every possible combination of food with every combination of protein and written every single one separately. Then they've put them in random order and randomly categorized them on the menu. When you go out to eat with friends, you can only order by category. So nobody quite gets what they want, and everyone eventually settles on the Velvet Offerings category as the norm.

And new folks just find something with a cool name like Sunset Beaches and hope it's good.

Erickson9610 · January 9

SneaK wrote: »

Earthen Heart is awful

Storm Calling will still be a staple on every Dragonknight build, shame.

Until the Sorcerer rework, that is.

Freelancer_ESO · January 9

It'll be interesting to see on the PTS.

Personally, I think with the sheer amount of effort put into this it might have been better to just make a new class instead.

All of my DK characters are going to need to be entirely reworked for the changes.

For an extreme example, one of my character builds was a Dragonknight Archer that was focused entirely around poison.

Needless to say, that character is now going to need to get a totally different identity.

I've got enough characters that for me it's not the end of the world but, due to the design approach the update to the DK could end up being a negative to my experience as it is taking out some of what I liked and the new version may or may not be a better experience.

Further, due to the degree of changes on the DK I'll likely be putting a hold on any serious upgrades or changes to any of my Wardens or Sorcs because those classes will potentially be getting similar reworks this year.

Ratzkifal · January 9

Ezhh wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Some thoughts:
Giving every class their own unique version of Arcanist beam sounds like a good solution to making it less mandatory to be an Arcanist in PvE. Love that.

Please no. Many of us who don't want to play beam hate or are fed up with the slow playstyle. If all this rework provides is effectively different coloured beam options, there's no point at all.

I'm sure they won't all just be exactly like beam. I'm thinking the DK breath is more like a "melee beam", since I doubt the flame breath will extend as far as Arcanist beam. For Warden I can see their verion of beam work like polar wind: centered around them and fire-and-forget.

The big issue in PvE is, how do you let other classes do what Arcanists do without nerfing Arcanists? Giving everyone an overly complicated rotation does not allow people to compete. I was able to PUG a vAS+2 for the first time in a full Arcanist run. Why? Because Arcanist is so easy that everybody can focus on staying alive, focusing the right targets and doing the mechanics correctly. Do I want every class to play exactly the same? No, of course not. But the success of Arcanist is undeniable and beam is a big part of that.

MXVIIDREAM · January 9

These Dragon Knight changes are absolutely beautiful—I love every single one! I won’t lie, I was secretly hoping for a bonus skill line for being a pure class, with some of the passives moved there. I do have a slight concern that other classes might subclass things like Ardent Flame and take advantage of the passives, but I really like how you’ve split them up.

Overall, the changes and trade-offs feel extremely balanced and polished. I’ll be a very happy player if these go live as they are, with the possibility of later adjustments if needed. At the moment, I honestly wouldn’t change a thing—it all feels strong without being overwhelming, which is exactly how a pure class should feel. I think some of the “this is OP” comments are missing the point, especially since every class is getting a similar overhaul.

Destai · January 9

I'm not seeing it here guys - is there anyway DK's can be a healer in this new world without subclassing?

Vraedlich · January 9

"All sources of Poison Damage have been updated to Flame Damage in the Dragonknight kit. These changes were made to better focus on the core fantasy of the Dragonknight, where many affixes didn’t work, synergize, or coherently mesh with Poison across the entire kit. We’ll be re-introducing Poison Damage elsewhere in the game with other class refreshes, where it fits into the overall theme of said class rather than being tacked on."

What the [snip]. Terrible choice.
I'm one of the people who MAIN stamdk and hybrid .. and most of my Dragonknight builds make use of or even focus on poison damage.

I knew they were going to ruin the only class I actually enjoy.
[edited for profanity bypass]

Plusscher · January 9

Ezhh wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Some thoughts:
Giving every class their own unique version of Arcanist beam sounds like a good solution to making it less mandatory to be an Arcanist in PvE. Love that.

Please no. Many of us who don't want to play beam hate or are fed up with the slow playstyle. If all this rework provides is effectively different coloured beam options, there's no point at all.

Agreed. If balance in ZoS terms means "add beam to all classes, but this time it's [insert class specific color]", then no, thank you. At that point why not just delete all classes and just all be arcanists? Would save them time and money lol.

Marto · January 9

I think this looks fantastic!

It basically looks like a new class in many aspects. Which I think is more or less the right approach for this.

ZOS should be asking themselves: If Dragonknight had never existed, and we were tasked today with creating a brand new Fire+Dragon+Stone class with high survivability, close range skills, and an aggressive and active playstyle... what would it look like?

I'm sure there will be plenty to nitpick in the patch notes. But beyond the patch notes, we players should really try it beforehand, see how it performs as a whole. Find which old interactions have changed, and what new interactions are possible. Treat it like a new class.

I think the remix of the skill and lines makes a lot of sense.

If you want to deal damage, you can pick Ardent Flame or Draconic Power.
If you want to be aggressive and have CC, you can pick Draconic Power or Earthen Heart
If you want to heal and be survivable, you can pick Earthen Heart or Ardent Flame

I think this is a good approach for multiclassing. Having an obvious skill line for your role essentially removes the choice. But having abilities for certain roles too spread out makes the choice confusing. Having them spread over 2 skill lines I think is appropriate.

Destai · January 9

So some general feedback the article, because I think there's some core assumptions that need to be challenged.

In light of subclassing, we’ve decided to look at skill line ability and passive distribution more closely than we have before. There are currently two distinct models of building skill lines for classes; a role-centric model (Necromancer, Arcanist, most of Warden), and one that focuses on theme or identity (the original 4 classes, with some exceptions such as the Nightblades’ Assassination).

I think Nightblade has a good balance. They're a pretty good model honestly. They have 1 pure damage line, and two others that can be DPS or a support role like tank or heal. That's awesome.

Prior to subclassing, there was a strong internal sentiment that the newer class model of role-specific skill lines was a more successful system for newer players, building more digestible experiences, and building more modular buckets that could be more easily compared and balanced to one another.

Personally, I like knowing what each skill line is for, role wise. I think there's a compromise to be had here though. Look at Wardens. They have 1 DPS line, 1 heal line, and a split line of Tank and Damage. That's a good model, that's what you have in NB. Let's say each line has a primary role. Take the DPS line - magicka and stamina morphs. The DPS line never changes. It's DPS. The heal line can be primarily a heal line, with alternative DPS morphs. Then the same with the tank line. So now Wardens, just using them cuz they're my main, can do animal-based, nature-based, or frost-based damage.

MXVIIDREAM · January 9

These Dragon Knight changes are absolutely beautiful—I love every single one! I won’t lie, I was secretly hoping for a bonus skill line for being a pure class, with some of the passives moved there. I do have a slight concern that other classes might subclass things like Ardent Flame and take advantage of the passives, but I really like how you’ve split them up.

Overall, the changes and trade-offs feel extremely balanced and polished. I’ll be a very happy player if these go live as they are, with the possibility of later adjustments if needed. At the moment, I honestly wouldn’t change a thing—it all feels strong without being overwhelming, which is exactly how a pure class should feel. I think some of the “this is OP” comments are missing the point, especially since every class is getting a similar overhaul.

@ZOS_Kevin the only question I’d ask you as a very experienced dragon knight main, could there be a chance to reduce the combustion passive timer, this is the 3rd time in a row it’s been changed for a lower value higher timer, I feel shorter timer could seriously help sustain on a struggling sustain class, otherwise you have my heart sold on all the other changes you’ve made it’s just this one I was really hoping to see

Seraphayel · January 9

Destai wrote: »

I'm not seeing it here guys - is there anyway DK's can be a healer in this new world without subclassing?

I think so, with a focus on shields. A new single target shield like Healing Ward and another AoE shield (scaling off Magicka now) are a great start to make DK a shield healer in my opinion.

MXVIIDREAM · January 9

Seraphayel wrote: »

Destai wrote: »

I'm not seeing it here guys - is there anyway DK's can be a healer in this new world without subclassing?

I think so, with a focus on shields. A new single target shield like Healing Ward and another AoE shield (scaling off Magicka now) are a great start to make DK a shield healer in my opinion.

Yes very easily thanks to a bunch of passives you can become very buff heavy and heal and also shield ally’s this is a very positive change for dks in regards to group support
And also supporting the play your own way

allochthons · January 9

Arthtur wrote: »

This passive is mostly useless in most scenarios. 50s for 10% buff? Constant combat at that? And it starts falling off after 2s?
We won't be able to stack it up in older dungeons because bosses will be dead before we get to max stacks. The same with trash packs.
We won't be able to stack it up because of mechanics. As long as boss have some immunity phases or we have to run alot, we might as well not have this passive.

Emphasis mine. I just want to make sure this is seen. Avalanche as written and the new fondness for boss Immunity Phases are really out of sync.

Ezhh · January 9

Malyore wrote: »

Ezhh wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Some thoughts:
Giving every class their own unique version of Arcanist beam sounds like a good solution to making it less mandatory to be an Arcanist in PvE. Love that.

Please no. Many of us who don't want to play beam hate or are fed up with the slow playstyle. If all this rework provides is effectively different coloured beam options, there's no point at all.

Just to counter, I like having the option of channeled aoe beams. I'd never have wanted a class change tokens (which ZOS turned into mulit/subclassing) if I could just channel a big lightning attack out of my sorcerer (they could have just turned overload into a longer and less clunky beam and I'd be happy)
Everyone has different tastes. As long as the options are implemented well, I am all for each class having the options for both faster or slower styles of gameplay while both being effective.

Oh, I fully agree. The issue is that the beam playstyle has so many advantages with no disadvantages that it is almost without exception both easier to play and more effective than alternatives.

SneaK · January 9

Erickson9610 wrote: »

SneaK wrote: »

Earthen Heart is awful

Storm Calling will still be a staple on every Dragonknight build, shame.

Until the Sorcerer rework, that is.

Said that in another comment.

Erickson9610 · January 9

I'm not a Dragonknight main, nor do I really play one — so take my perspective with a grain of salt.

From an outsider's perspective, wouldn't it make sense to double down on the fire theme by removing the dual focus on poison? I don't see how "Dragonknight" communicates that it's also a poison class. When I think of dragons in high fantasy, I think of the fire-breathing variety — not necessarily the ice-breathing ones from TES.

This change might make it easier for new players to understand what the power fantasy and theme of Dragonknight is about. Out of all the classes, I'd expect Nightblade to have more poison attacks, given that poisons are used in assassinations in TES.

Ezhh · January 9

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Ezhh wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Some thoughts:
Giving every class their own unique version of Arcanist beam sounds like a good solution to making it less mandatory to be an Arcanist in PvE. Love that.

Please no. Many of us who don't want to play beam hate or are fed up with the slow playstyle. If all this rework provides is effectively different coloured beam options, there's no point at all.

I'm sure they won't all just be exactly like beam. I'm thinking the DK breath is more like a "melee beam", since I doubt the flame breath will extend as far as Arcanist beam. For Warden I can see their verion of beam work like polar wind: centered around them and fire-and-forget.

The big issue in PvE is, how do you let other classes do what Arcanists do without nerfing Arcanists? Giving everyone an overly complicated rotation does not allow people to compete. I was able to PUG a vAS+2 for the first time in a full Arcanist run. Why? Because Arcanist is so easy that everybody can focus on staying alive, focusing the right targets and doing the mechanics correctly. Do I want every class to play exactly the same? No, of course not. But the success of Arcanist is undeniable and beam is a big part of that.

Yes, but the issue is that one skill per 4+ seconds is also a playstyle that I've seen many friends of mine pushed out by. Not everyone wants to play this and zos kind of built a trap for themselves where it's hard to balance other playstyles. I feel both slow simple rotations and faster more complex ones should be valid.

Radiate77 · January 9

Here’s some feedback that I have regarding the new changes coming to Dragonknight…

This is a good change, but I want to highlight “per Dragonknight ability slotted” as a pain point with the direction of these new reworks. While players will generally have 3 Draconic Power abilities slotted in PvP before they Leap, this effectively kills the passive for back-bar ultimates on Subclassed builds. An easy fix to this, would be to incorporate the “while slotted on either bar” treatment.

Another great change, but I feel the need to double down on the fact that adding limitations to our skills derivative of which other Subclasses you choose is not going to make skill lines desirable for Subclassing. Ardent Flame has very little pick-rate in PvP at the moment, and a change like this does not help. When I read that I need 2 other Dragonknight skill lines to get the most efficiency out of Molten Whip, I’m just not taking Ardent Flame.

For this one I would formally like to request that the word Super is stripped from this ability name. I see a lot of people making fun of this one, and I would rather just avoid the headache entirely.

-Brimstone Ward
-Treated Ward
-Disintegration Ward
-Anything else?

Now this one is huge. I believe this is entirely the correct path forward, as it further stabilizes Class Identity by reinforcing that we have nothing to do with snakes, let Warden or Nightblade have poison.

In closing, I would advise caution when choosing to add restrictions like, “for each Class skill slotted.” I understand that Pure classes need help, but this needs to be done intelligently, like with Earthen Heart’s Avalanche boosting a playstyle found primarily on Ardent Flame.

Class synergy should be implied, not required or directly stated.

MXVIIDREAM · January 9

1 question and potential complaint, important ones aswell I believe

Question one I understand about the cool down on whip having however many seconds
Will molten whip be separate to that because if I can’t whip with the bonus in both pve and PvP that’s going to be extremely negative for both experiences which is pretty significant

Question two the avalanche passive sounds great however it’s going to take 50 seconds to build to max thats quite some time and I feel like it should be at least halved to half of that to keep dragon knights competitive or its two long for half of the short pve fights and PvP it’s going to be a real push to get that going for the most part and you’ll loose it very fast the second you can’t see someone maybe balance them both at 3seconds each

MXVIIDREAM · January 9

!!CONSTRUCTIVE COMMENT!!

I would really appreciate both the morphs of fire breath to consume magicka that would significantly improve the reward to return of the skill
Having it apply major breach as most playstyles require eledrain on the back bar id love for it to further amplify fire damage i know the old engulfing morph was moved but another idea
imagine will enemy’s are getting chargrilled they take more damage to fire for 3 seconds

Otherwise I love the changes great work

YandereGirlfriend · January 9

I'm only half-way through but so far it's looking good!

I would say:

1. "Avalanche" should really be changed to something like "Landslide". Avalanche walks all over Frost Warden territory as a name and connotations of cold are at complete odds with what the Dragonknight class is about. Whereas "Landslide" is the exact same concept except that it is properly earth-themed, which is much more on-point for the class.

2. Waiting a year and a half for Necromancer, the final class, is super brutal. I know that these revamps take a great deal of effort but that timeline is just far, far, far too long. If it is at all possible to do two classes per season I would strongly suggest to do that.