Early Impressions on The DK Overhaul

MincMincMinc · January 12

For PvP I expect earthern just wont be used other than niche wants. It is going to have what 3x heals/shields now 1x buff and 1x worse than live stun(sorry for petrify I should say NOW properly designed, but overall nerfed stun). Other than corrosive stall builds I just dont see the reason to ever take it compared to other subclasses.

MXVIIDREAM · January 12

DRAGON ARMOUR IS RUINED
I’ve made a post let’s try get some traction behind it otherwise this is what we have for dk armour

noblecron · January 12

I dont care for the heart floating over the head. Feels more necromancer than DK. Just give me a fireball instead. That'd make more sense. The wings are glitching to the side as well

Some buffs to skills would be nice too

MXVIIDREAM · January 13

noblecron wrote: »

I dont care for the heart floating over the head. Feels more necromancer than DK. Just give me a fireball instead. That'd make more sense. The wings are glitching to the side as well

Some buffs to skills would be nice too

I think it’s a bug I think it’s meant to be in your chest like it used too

Ingel_Riday · January 13

First impression: I hate it. All of it, haha.

But... that's just me. 100% just me. My Dragonknight has been my main since 2017 and now the entire class is being completely reworked into something alien and new because sub-classing, which we all warned would break the game's balance and muck things up, unsurprisingly broke the game's balance and mucked things up.

I doubt any of these changes will actually make my character competitive with the sub-class meta build(s). But the changes will annoy me and force me to re-learn my entire class from the ground up. If I end up thoroughly hating it, at least I have my six alts to fall back on... until they all inevitably get re-worked and twisted about the place too, one by one, over the next TWO YEARS. All in a response to a poorly thought out system that should have never been rolled out in the first place.

Great times. Love the live service business model. :-/

Edit addition: on the plus side, I'm playing a lot more non-live service games now. Just beat Twilight Princess and I'm 94% of the way through Metroid Prime Remastered. This stuff is kind of shifting my focus to steadier things. I don't have to worry that I'll boot up Twilight Princess and Link will suddenly have half his abilities scaling off max health, entire new ability rotations, and an entire different playstyle that will no doubt require four subsequent updates of nerfs.

Ingel_Riday · January 13

To be a little more constructive: the power fantasy of a magicka dragonknight was being a pyromancer who stacked dots. You breathed fire on your enemy, scorched your enemy with a burning ember of even more fire, shrouded the ground in an eruption of burning ash for even more damage, and every five seconds an orb of fire burned them too. Not to mention the damage boost to the burning status effect. That was what you did. That was the fantasy. Not stone (that was tanks). Not dragon wings or scales (that was tanks, too). Not poison (that was stamina dragonknights). Pyromancy and dots.

Now we're walking volcanoes, who take a while to get going before we violently erupt our lava all over our enemies' faces? Attrition warriors.

That's not the class identity that you've fostered for over a decade. That's an entirely new class identity. Not a fan, but I've had 12 years of being a pyromancer dot-guru and now I'm supposed to be a gradual build-up attrition master with a volcano theme. Well, maybe a volcano theme. More on that later.

So lava whip is still lava whip. I bet Molten Whip will still require magicka and stamina for reasons known only to Beelzebub, so I'll be flame lashing still.

Searing Strike had been shifted to 20 seconds to bring it in line with a bunch of other dots, but now it's 10 seconds... so I'll have to cast it more often, have a more annoying spell rotation, and the healing I get from it will be nerfed because it now scales off max health. Great. At least it does more damage... until Update 50, no doubt.

The Inhale change is nice, but 4 second duration. Great. So I get to cast this every 4 seconds and Searing Strike every 10 seconds. Awesome. I'll have to re-learn my whole rotation... in year 12 of the game. I guess it'll be like blasted blightbones, which I have to cast every three abilities as a necromancer. "1, 2, 3, blasted blightbones, 1, 2, 3, rinse and repeat until combat is done." You know, only now with inhale.

Eruption no longer provides ANY DAMAGE WHATSOEVER. There went one of my favorite abilities. But hey, it's been changed to benefit tanks. And my searing strike has been changed to benefit tanks.

Do you want dragonknights to be tanks? Big tanky walking volcanoes with powerful eruptions? You know, except in regards to their ability named eruption, which now has no damage. I digress.

Inferno and its wonderful orbs are gone, but now it forms a massive wave of flame? I guess to make up for eruption being gutted. So I'll be casting this and elemental blockade to create my dot fields? Oh, doubled the mana costs, too. Great. Better cast inhale EVERY FOUR SECONDS FOREVER. Thanks. That'll be fun.

Combustion got halved but can happen every second now. Great. It'll be back to every three seconds by Update 51.

Dragon Leap is cool.

Fiery Breath (now Dragonfire Breath... because the class identity is a walking volcano... who's also a dragon... who also loves stone) has a 10 second duration, so I get to cast it more often. Better cast inhale EVERY FOUR SECONDS FOREVER. I can choose between a stamina version (which at least gives me one stamina ability to ease up the torturing of my magicka bar) or a magicka version which turns this into a discount book beam best used after dragon leaping. I have no idea which will be better. I guess I can hope that we still have some theory-crafters left in the community to test it out and let us know. Again, just re-learning the whole class... 12 years in. If I was a betting man, though, the magicka morph is too situational and quirky. You're not casting spammables or light attacks while channeling it and it only works at full power AFTER you've done a very specific ultimate morph. Outside of niche pvp scenarios, I think most PVE players will be using the stam morph.

For being called a dragonknight, the class has always been missing the most iconic feeling of being a dragon

Because being a dragon was NOT the power fantasy. Well, not the only one. The class had multiple power fantasies going on depending on spec. Also, if the goal is to foster the most iconic feeling of being a dragon... half these new abilities revolve around volcano themes or stone. So... yeah.

Anyway... Dragon Blood looks fine. Coagulating Blood morph used to be my spot heal when things got hairy. Looks like it'll still work roughly the same, only with the added benefit of helping out my companion too. RIght now, I only have self-heals and pout at Isabel as she melts. "Sorry!" Guess this will solve that.

Skimming, skimming... Elder Dragon getting minor brutality works, since I'll be having to cast fiery breath every ten seconds anyway (assuming best in slot is not the discount book beam, which I kind of doubt).

Storm Voice basically means that you'll want to avoid weapon skills and non-class skills whenever possible, which is interesting. Wasn't using most of them, anyway.

Molten Weapons is fine. I hope the duration doesn't get shortened, given that I'll be re-casting my dots twice as often and casting inhale every four seconds forever (not bothering to cap it anymore). I'm assuming the Arcanist-inspired additional damage every x couple of seconds won't stick around long. It's too nice.

Volatile Armor change is interesting. Does the dot persist around me like the warden's arctic blast or do I have to make sure to wait to cast this until I'm surrounded by foes? Also, interesting synergy with Avalanche. Not bad at all.

I like the Mountain Giant change, since I'm in melee range all the time and running out of stamina for dodging is awful.

Avalanche is funny. Most trash fights end well before 50 seconds, so you'll only really get this stacked up on bosses. On the plus side, that's when you'll need it and it doesn't start dropping until you haven't done damage for two seconds. You have oodles of dots, so you'll be 100% fine... until the boss goes into an invulnerable phase for 30 seconds or something. Then you'll be crying. :-P Also, am I dragon or a volcano or a mountain?

"You're all three, baby. You're all three."

_________________________________

My tone is too negative and I know it, but this is a very different class with a very different rotation. It'll take a while to re-learn everything and get used to the avalanche stacking. I will mourn my pyromancer dot-guru, who will now be a volcano stone-dragon of the mountains.

Right now, I have dumped draconic power for Assassination, but with everything spread the way it is... I'll be dropping sub-classing to pick draconic power back up and keep minor brutality & fiery breath. As a result, I'll probably be lucky to break even once all these changes go through. At least sub-class meta builds who were basking in Ardent Flame glory will get knocked down a peg too, I suppose. They'll skip over to a new hotness for half a year until it's the next class's turn.

Tariq9898 · January 13

They need to revert the Standard of Might changes and make Shifting the group support buff.

Or at the very least, bring back Standard of Might’s original flame damage by way of having more DK abilities slotted. This would further incentivize the pure class and overall class fantasy. Something ZOS has stated is their focus.

Militan1404 · January 13

So does anyone know if the DK now so strong that we dont need to subclassing anymore in both pve and pvp to be viable? If not the whole rework its a bust

Radiate77 · January 13

Tariq9898 wrote: »

They need to revert the Standard of Might changes and make Shifting the group support buff.

Or at the very least, bring back Standard of Might’s original flame damage by way of having more DK abilities slotted. This would further incentivize the pure class and overall class fantasy. Something ZOS has stated is their focus.

Absolutely none of the above.

Whizzinglane · January 13

Personofsecrets wrote: »

I genuinely hate the changes to battle roar, mountain's blessing, and helping hands. It's disturbing that the designer don't mind swapping these things around which are some of the few things that actually feel good about playing DK tank and actually add to that identity.

No amount of splitting up skill lines is likely to make pure classes worth while. It's not statistically probable that out of 21 possilbe skill lines, for each class to have a preference for it's own kit and those three skill lines only. Therefore, breaking up skill lines so that they have less focus toward any one goal is really just nerfing all roles and upending current ways of playing that people such as myself may enjoy.

And if there is some strange scenario where all classes prefer their own kits, then again there will be a tendency toward the homogenization that people complain about.

I'm struggling to find much in the changes that makes DK feel cool. Whether it is as a pure class or as a multiclass, DK has had tools stolen from it time and time again over the years and that theft has caused a great loss in what makes it feel cool. Sliding around passives doesn't make DK feel cool. Transforming some of the few things about DK that feel remotely interesting, for example the Ultimates, doesn't help them be cool. Maybe, they are becoming even less cool now. Mutilating the Earthen Heart passives doesn't feel cool, it makes me sick.

Imagine how useless Magma Shell or especially corrosive armor is without the immediate health restoration provided by Battle Roar. That is especially the case in the current toxic PvP environment that will not be improving whatsoever for DK.

Igneous shield loses it's niche effect of restoring stamina in tight spots due to the gutting helping hands. So in these scenarios where a DK is being pressured on health and wants some stamina back for blocking, it now has to break up it's shielding with..... heavy attacking..... That's right, the pulled the old swaparoo and are trying to force players to heavy attack again. So the thing that you definitely do not have time or health for under pressure, heavy attacking, is new selling point of the changed skill line. That such an old way of thinking for the design team and I'm not surprised that they went there. And was there any review of "da data" which showed DK tanks enjoying heavy attacking? That's not only doubtful but also flies in the face of the change to Stonefist which would have helped tanks not have to drop block during key moments.

And how funny it is that Mountains Blessing couldn't have been left alone to allow for Igneous Weapons to buff both Major and Minor Brutality at once.

These changes aren't just upending a playstyle, they are nerfs, and they are a slap in the face. I'm more disgusted than I have ever been regarding the changes to this game.

^^THIS!

Lord_Hev · January 13

Ingel_Riday wrote: »

To be a little more constructive: the power fantasy of a magicka dragonknight was being a pyromancer who stacked dots. You breathed fire on your enemy, scorched your enemy with a burning ember of even more fire, shrouded the ground in an eruption of burning ash for even more damage, and every five seconds an orb of fire burned them too. Not to mention the damage boost to the burning status effect. That was what you did. That was the fantasy. Not stone (that was tanks). Not dragon wings or scales (that was tanks, too). Not poison (that was stamina dragonknights). Pyromancy and dots.

Now we're walking volcanoes, who take a while to get going before we violently erupt our lava all over our enemies' faces? Attrition warriors.

That's not the class identity that you've fostered for over a decade. That's an entirely new class identity. Not a fan, but I've had 12 years of being a pyromancer dot-guru and now I'm supposed to be a gradual build-up attrition master with a volcano theme. Well, maybe a volcano theme. More on that later.

So lava whip is still lava whip. I bet Molten Whip will still require magicka and stamina for reasons known only to Beelzebub, so I'll be flame lashing still.

Searing Strike had been shifted to 20 seconds to bring it in line with a bunch of other dots, but now it's 10 seconds... so I'll have to cast it more often, have a more annoying spell rotation, and the healing I get from it will be nerfed because it now scales off max health. Great. At least it does more damage... until Update 50, no doubt.

The Inhale change is nice, but 4 second duration. Great. So I get to cast this every 4 seconds and Searing Strike every 10 seconds. Awesome. I'll have to re-learn my whole rotation... in year 12 of the game. I guess it'll be like blasted blightbones, which I have to cast every three abilities as a necromancer. "1, 2, 3, blasted blightbones, 1, 2, 3, rinse and repeat until combat is done." You know, only now with inhale.

Eruption no longer provides ANY DAMAGE WHATSOEVER. There went one of my favorite abilities. But hey, it's been changed to benefit tanks. And my searing strike has been changed to benefit tanks.

Do you want dragonknights to be tanks? Big tanky walking volcanoes with powerful eruptions? You know, except in regards to their ability named eruption, which now has no damage. I digress.

Inferno and its wonderful orbs are gone, but now it forms a massive wave of flame? I guess to make up for eruption being gutted. So I'll be casting this and elemental blockade to create my dot fields? Oh, doubled the mana costs, too. Great. Better cast inhale EVERY FOUR SECONDS FOREVER. Thanks. That'll be fun.

Combustion got halved but can happen every second now. Great. It'll be back to every three seconds by Update 51.

Dragon Leap is cool.

Fiery Breath (now Dragonfire Breath... because the class identity is a walking volcano... who's also a dragon... who also loves stone) has a 10 second duration, so I get to cast it more often. Better cast inhale EVERY FOUR SECONDS FOREVER. I can choose between a stamina version (which at least gives me one stamina ability to ease up the torturing of my magicka bar) or a magicka version which turns this into a discount book beam best used after dragon leaping. I have no idea which will be better. I guess I can hope that we still have some theory-crafters left in the community to test it out and let us know. Again, just re-learning the whole class... 12 years in. If I was a betting man, though, the magicka morph is too situational and quirky. You're not casting spammables or light attacks while channeling it and it only works at full power AFTER you've done a very specific ultimate morph. Outside of niche pvp scenarios, I think most PVE players will be using the stam morph.

For being called a dragonknight, the class has always been missing the most iconic feeling of being a dragon

Because being a dragon was NOT the power fantasy. Well, not the only one. The class had multiple power fantasies going on depending on spec. Also, if the goal is to foster the most iconic feeling of being a dragon... half these new abilities revolve around volcano themes or stone. So... yeah.

Anyway... Dragon Blood looks fine. Coagulating Blood morph used to be my spot heal when things got hairy. Looks like it'll still work roughly the same, only with the added benefit of helping out my companion too. RIght now, I only have self-heals and pout at Isabel as she melts. "Sorry!" Guess this will solve that.

Skimming, skimming... Elder Dragon getting minor brutality works, since I'll be having to cast fiery breath every ten seconds anyway (assuming best in slot is not the discount book beam, which I kind of doubt).

Storm Voice basically means that you'll want to avoid weapon skills and non-class skills whenever possible, which is interesting. Wasn't using most of them, anyway.

Molten Weapons is fine. I hope the duration doesn't get shortened, given that I'll be re-casting my dots twice as often and casting inhale every four seconds forever (not bothering to cap it anymore). I'm assuming the Arcanist-inspired additional damage every x couple of seconds won't stick around long. It's too nice.

Volatile Armor change is interesting. Does the dot persist around me like the warden's arctic blast or do I have to make sure to wait to cast this until I'm surrounded by foes? Also, interesting synergy with Avalanche. Not bad at all.

I like the Mountain Giant change, since I'm in melee range all the time and running out of stamina for dodging is awful.

Avalanche is funny. Most trash fights end well before 50 seconds, so you'll only really get this stacked up on bosses. On the plus side, that's when you'll need it and it doesn't start dropping until you haven't done damage for two seconds. You have oodles of dots, so you'll be 100% fine... until the boss goes into an invulnerable phase for 30 seconds or something. Then you'll be crying. :-P Also, am I dragon or a volcano or a mountain?

"You're all three, baby. You're all three."

_________________________________

My tone is too negative and I know it, but this is a very different class with a very different rotation. It'll take a while to re-learn everything and get used to the avalanche stacking. I will mourn my pyromancer dot-guru, who will now be a volcano stone-dragon of the mountains.

Right now, I have dumped draconic power for Assassination, but with everything spread the way it is... I'll be dropping sub-classing to pick draconic power back up and keep minor brutality & fiery breath. As a result, I'll probably be lucky to break even once all these changes go through. At least sub-class meta builds who were basking in Ardent Flame glory will get knocked down a peg too, I suppose. They'll skip over to a new hotness for half a year until it's the next class's turn.

Thank you for the amusingly accurate read, this notion is pretty much aligned with what I imagined would happen when they gutted the passives to make way for inhale being used or whatever the new name is... Yes now we have to learn new names... Our skill bars are already excessively LIMITED. Please revert our core sustain back into our relevant passives.

I wasted basically two hours on that class identity survey detailing my thoughts on every single class, and none of it is reflected. I already see the writing on the wall. They should have restricted the surveys to only long-time players or players that can verify total playtime on a class for the class they were speaking about. The thought that the overwhelming feedback from the survey was that the classes needed "visual refresh" including complete name changing is absolutely absurd.

MXVIIDREAM · January 13

I have to disagree with the new coag blood the skill is great but the animation I’m hoping is bugged the heart flying above your head instead of in your chest is incredibly distracting like having one of those annoying group icons stuck above your head

GloatingSwine · January 13

MXVIIDREAM wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

SolarRune wrote: »

From a DD perspective I like the changes. Looking at it with my healer or tank eyes on I hate it, all the build variety offered of subclassing just vanishes, and there was no variety for many more years than DD. You basically need to select all the lines to be effective, massive backward step for supports, it swings the pendulum the other way that is as wrong as dd subclassing being overpowered.

As far as I understood this design was exactly the goal, by popular demand. If you are objective non-optimal doesn't equal ineffective.

Not really there’s some great stuff in there for tanks and even better stuff in there for support tbh

Makes subclassing a tank viable aswell, but when the whole servers picking the same 3 skill lines there’s a problem

No, there used to be great stuff in Earthen Heart for tanks but now it's not all in the same place. Earthen Heart used to give you Stagger, Minor Brutality for team, ultimate on skill use, and a big restore of resources when you used ult and all of that used to be conveniently activated by Stone Giant.

But all of that is now split in half, which means that now the Minor Brutality doesn't have a convenient skill to activate it with and doing so won't help you build ultimate, which means on a tank you are just providing less team utility because your ultimate is also team utility.

And that's the problem with these skill lines in the era of subclassing, none of them have enough value in one place to pick them on a subclassed character.

For DPS Ardent Flame used to give you a long lasting DoT in Claw and a highly efficient even on one target fire and forget damage skill in Flames of Oblivion, but new Claw isn't long lasting and new FoO isn't efficient until it has about five targets. And since you won't be using either of those you can't charge Whip.

For tanks see above, the Minor Brutality, Ult on skill, and Stagger equivalent at least need to be all in the same skill line, if not there's no reason to pick a skill line for only some of those things, less reliably usable.

For healers it's the same story as before, the class offers nothing. Nothing in DK makes it heal people better or do something interesting when it does. The new Hearthfire/Fire Keeper could theoretically be but there's absolutely nothing else in the skill line that is attractive to a healer so you're investing a whole skill line for a single skill that isn't going to make or break anyone's team.

And if you put it all together and pureclass DPS have lost out because the numbers are too small, tanks have gained nothing they didn't have before from scribing and healers continue to not know that DK exists.