PTS Update 49 - Feedback Thread for Classes & Abilities

ZOS_Kevin · January 12

This is the official feedback thread for any combat or class changes coming in Update 49. After you have a chance to try out different combat scenarios, let us know what you think of the current balance and changes. We have a separete thread specifically for Dragonknight due to the number of changes being made. You can find that link here.

For context regarding timeline for changes, stats or number changes for skills are changes we can make within the PTS cycle. If the changes or suggestions require more technical changes, we will take those to the combat team and changes can be made sometime after U49 release.

Ratzkifal · January 12

The new Uppercut feels a lot better to use than the old one in my opinion. The different animation will take some getting used to, but as far as I can tell it looks like it's more historically accurate than the old animation that we had. It's cool. Also I like it a whole lot more than the previous changes to Dual Wield's rapid strikes, which I still dislike.

acastanza_ESO · January 12

Nerfing stacking HOTs is great, and it's fantastic to see ZOS finally taking a look at this, but the implementation is kind of pretty awful. There's a whole other thread with a lot of good feedback from other people but these are my 2 cents;

With the current change paradigm, the healing reduction should ONLY reduce the power of externally applied HOTs, and NOT affect direct/burst heals at all. A single extra drive-by HOT from a random player could dumpster your own burst healing, which is absolutely AWFUL. Direct healing is a skill-based reactive system, and suddenly deleting player power there because of random circumstances beyond your control is pants-on-head.

A better solution than this though in my opinion would be to move some HOTs (starting with Regeneration and Vigor) to a Major/Minor buff system. E.g.

Radiating Regeneration applies "Major Healing" for X seconds, this buff can stack up to N times. Additional stacks add V healing.
Echoing Vigor applies "Minor Healing" for Y seconds, this buff can stack up to M times. Additional stacks add W healing.

This would allow much better fine-tuning of the healing balance here.

YandereGirlfriend · January 12

The outrageously ill-considered global nerf to healing received after exceeding two HOTs is probably the worst single change that I've ever seen in a Patch Notes release. The spirit of the idea is sound, limiting the effectiveness of HOT-stacking in PvP; but the execution is absolutely abysmal.

The first and most obvious reason for why this change is a complete disaster is because you, as a player, have ZERO CONTROL over whether or not you will receive this essentially death-sentence. It makes casual zone healers the literal scourge of the earth in Cyrodiil because they will be, rather than assisting their faction, walking Grim Reapers sentencing their own side to death by simply trying to help them. It is also a fantastic opportunity for trolling and sabotage as logging-in on an enemy faction for the specific purpose of destroying their healing becomes a very appealing strategy for a subset of players.

Easy ways that you can salvage this situation:

1. Disallow sticky HOTs of the same morph from stacking with each other and call it a day (this is by far the best option)
2. Apply the 50% healing nerf specifically to sticky HOTs

Both of these achieve the intended goal of the change without pitting players at each other's throats or having disastrous impacts downstream of the change.

I sincerely hope to see one of those two listed in the PTS Notes for Week 2.

FoJul · January 12

Dont know if this is just on my end, but umm DK wings dont look right.

MurkyWetWolf198 · January 12

The HOT restriction is the right idea with the wrong implementation. It’s going to make random group healers more of a threat to you if they’re on your team, not enemy

PathosDante · January 12

Healing should only apply within the group. In fact, all buff applications should be limited to group members. You’ll see that the importance of forming groups will increase. The game will become more social and cooperative.

i11ionward · January 12

When I saw the announcement regarding the Two-Handed skill line changes, I expected much more than what was actually delivered. I anticipated a significant rework, something on the level of the Dragonknight class adjustments.
While the buffs to Berserker Strike, Uppercut, and Momentum look decent on their own, the Two-Handed tree is still hopelessly lagging behind Dual Wield in terms of passive skills. Essentially, if you are playing a melee damage dealer and don't want to build around Uppercut (and Uppercut builds are quite rare now, even in PvP), you will choose Dual Wield for your front bar 9 times out of 10 . This is due to their superior passives, the benefit of having two separate weapon enchantments, and two traits.
Overall, I would like to see a complete overhaul of the Two-Handed passives so that this skill line can truly compete with Dual Wield.

MXVIIDREAM · January 12

I’m so so disappointed they clipped the spikes off dk and made it look like a stupid back pack please please go back to the first look of dk spikes I can’t express how sad that is for me as a dk main I pleat it because I love the visuals and that’s ruined it for me

MXVIIDREAM · January 12

I’ll start with the pain point the dk armour CHANGE THIS BACK the new animation makes me look more like a turtle I hate it so much and the heart above the new coag skill is absolutely horrible for pts although I feel that they have done a great job with 90% of these changes there’s a few things really hurting the great changes they made

Engulfing Dragonfire

This cost needs to be per second not a cast cost like split it over the duration as we have to break it to heal and that’s expensive Please also Add major protection for 5seconds on activation or something similar of the new channeled fire breath, this will keep it in line with arcanists channeled beam that receives a fairly large shield or the Templar passive that mitigates a huge chunk of damage by blocking everything while you channel and stop taking so much damage while channeling its such a fun skill but so hard to use the entire channel without taking full damage with no other mitigation and make it so much more appealing for players of any skill level

Blood of the Elder Dragon
feels better looks horrible please please remove the heart above it’s going to annoy everyone and will personally stop me using the skill and I was excited too, also still weak compared to other class counter parts Templar’s breath of life wardens soothing spores scribing heals for such a big cost id this base heal about 2/3k higher to bring the tool tips more in line and make it a more solid choice

Disintegrating Dragonfire
As many others have said major breach is so heavily available it feels like a waste on the skill maybe give a 10% additional damage to flame damage while effected by the dot from this skill or just give it access to major vulnerability sure a rare debuff would be cool to have one rare debuff on a dk

I would like to take the time to thank them for adjusting the dot timers to 10 seconds this rewards players able to keep the dot up greatly while players still unable to apply it more than once every 20 seconds don’t loose out, because they still apply the same honestly great, great choice inclusive of everyone

I’ll obviously continue to test these out in every scenario and add updates here and there

Dalinar4 · January 12

50% healing nerf...

Setting aside the seemingly Machiavellian design of this change, has anyone considered the impact this could have on the already over taxed servers? Think about the number of added checks this will cause the server to do. Every time a person is hit by any heal the server will now have to do a check to see what heals they already have. How did they code that check? Is it just checking for "like" heals, or is it a full character sheet being checked every time?

In large scale battles that’s likely thousands if not tens of thousands of extra checks every minute for the server.

monkiie · January 12

PathosDante wrote: »

Healing should only apply within the group. In fact, all buff applications should be limited to group members. You’ll see that the importance of forming groups will increase. The game will become more social and cooperative.

Absolutely agreed. This is the best way to go about it in my opinion. The 50% healing nerf needs to be accompanied with this change OR the debuff needs to apply only to external heals and not self heals. It also needs to impact shielding because shielding in ballgroups is just as overtuned as healing. Either way, this is a step in the right direction and I hope Zenimax is true to their word that they will listen to player feedback this time around.

xylena · January 12

The Cyro heal stacking change seriously restricts solo builds, while being only an inconvenience for comp groups who can much more easily adapt by leaning heavy into shield stacking.

MXVIIDREAM · January 12

I’m so so disappointed and so are everyone I talk too, they clipped the spikes off dk and made it look like a stupid back pack please please go back to the first look of dk spikes I can’t express how sad that is for me as a dk main I play it because I love the visuals and that’s ruined it for me and a lot of people are saying the same
New coag skill beautiful but the heart above it, please please remove that

Radiate77 · January 12

I wouldn’t go back to the old Spikes, but wow these new ones are pretty bad.

My suggestion? Just size them down slightly and put them on our outer forearms and shins.

Having that small patch in the back of your character does not look like it will mesh well with metal armor you’d typically find on a “knight.”

Dalinar4 · January 12

50% healing nerf 2.0

Above Yandere had a very good post about thing.

The goal seems to be targeted specifically at Ball Groups, but this will hurt "normal" players the most. Nuking all healing received by 50% with a mostly uncontrollable proc condition is one of the worse decisions I have ever seen in this game. Burst healing is one of the primary ways solo players survive.Being a healer in PvP is now a net negative to your faction's survivability.

Instead:
1. Only applies to Healing over time skills
2. 2.5% healing received reduction for each player you are grouped with. 12 players = 27.50%, 30% if you count yourself.
3. Limit the number of the same HOT on each person. Example: 3 Echoing Vigor stacks, hit by #4 resets the oldest one.

MXVIIDREAM · January 12

Please rework the skill back to the old animation these spikes are terrible the old one is where everyone’s heart lies as a dk please consider putting this back

Trinotops · January 12

Extremely upset with the new Reverse Slash animation. Barswap animation cancelling this ability was one of the most satisfying feelings in this game, but now it can't be barswap cancelled and the animation is forced to play in full.
Please stop ruining new abilities and animations by making them unable to be animation cancelled.

Vaqual · January 12

(edited because I realized this is not the right thread for all feedback)

Fleetstep Wings seems to be drastically overtuned as a disengage tool. CC, ranged damage reduction, major exp and snare cleanse/immunity in one package is too much (excluding convenient passive minor brutality). RaT and Warden Wings were already too strong, but this ability will cut down kill chances drastically.

MurkyWetWolf198 · January 12

New 2h animation SFX are very slashy. Great for samurai swords, but make ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE with big bonk hammer

noblecron · January 12

I find the heart floating above the head skill kind of annoying too. Make it a fireball or something. Supposed to be a dragon not a necromancer.

Also all skills that use wings are sideways.

Some of my friends are saying the damage and healing is too weak so some buffs wouldn't hurt

the new 2h animations are great for swords. No clue about axes and hammers

acastanza_ESO · January 12

noblecron wrote: »

I find the heart floating above the head skill kind of annoying too. Make it a fireball or something. Supposed to be a dragon not a necromancer.

Also all skills that use wings are sideways.

Some of my friends are saying the damage and healing is too weak so some buffs wouldn't hurt

the new 2h animations are great for swords. No clue about axes and hammers

Is it even supposed to be over your head, or is it bugged like the wings are? The current version of the skill creates a glowing heart like that in your chest. I assumed it being over your head was a bug...

React · January 12

The new uppercut animation is horrendous. The old one felt like it provided a very nice window for timing your following weave/skill, or even counterplaying while on the other end of it due to the nature of the animation. The new one does not feel like it provides a good visual representation of when it will fire, and in my testing just did not feel great to use in pvp.

The healing change is going to be tough to test on the PTS, but I absolutely think that something drastic is necessary to hit the healing of comped out groups. That said, this change won't actually stop the 12 man groups from doing what theyre doing with impunity, because the other factors (shield stacking, buff sets stacking) are too far out of control as well. @gariondavey offered what i thought was a much better solution in another thread which was to have hots simply overwrite eachother if they have the same name, and to apply the same concepts to damage shields. This would hit large scale groups in a much more meaningful way, without many of the negative drawbacks people are worried about.

gamergirldk · January 13

We need the old bonk slam sound back for 2-hand Ulti, and the old execute skill animation.

YandereGirlfriend · January 13

Imagine being an open-world Templar who uses Rune. Oops! That's one sticky HOT!

Imagine also using Green Vigor as nearly every open-world player does. Uh oh! That's another sticky HOT!

Now imagine both of those things while some random zone player who only wants to help clips you with a Radiating Regen from the side of a keep and now suddenly you can't heal at all.

This is a very realistic vignette of what life looks like with the current misbegotten healing change. That future is very bleak and needs to be avoided at all possible costs.

Soarora · January 13

Similar to what I said on the DK thread, the new 2H animations look amazing but they also look very samey between morphs and the base skill. For example, why does carve and brawler both look like they have a shield for 3 seconds, when carve has no shield and brawler has a shield for 6 seconds?

MincMincMinc · January 13

Two Handed review from a 10 year dizzy veteran

Onslaught

Are we joking? 100% pen and 100% crit chance....... Previously you guys gutted the dizzy swing skill damage and knockback because the reworked onslaught was too strong. YES you nerfed dizzy swing with the reasoning that another skill was too strong. Then you went and nerfed onslaught because 100% pen was too strong on all attacks. Why bring it back and spit in our face with 100% crit chance? This is bound to be removed from the game.

IMO you already gutted old dizzy playstyle from the game. Why not change onslaught to be like old dizzy swing where it is a low cost 75 ult which does a cast time and a big hit+knockup. All oldschool 2h users have been begging for dizzy swing back. Make the ult more unique than just a copy of corrosive. If I was to make the ult it would use the 75 ult......begin cast(enemy counterplay telegraph)....then do an aim check at the end to hit whatever target you are looking at. Upon successful hit the enemy is struck into the air with a knockup and a 1.75wd coefficient physical attack.

Simple, straight forward, non gamebreaking, and counterplay-able for both sides

Uppercut

Honestly it is better than live uppercut, but I would still rather the old unique dizzy swing long cast big hit knockup back. The major issue I see is that offbalance on dizzy is a terrible mechanic with VERY unclear telegraphs and mechanics. I have been using dizzy for 10 years of my life at a very high level of pvp. I honestly stopped paying attention to offbalance or who is going to be stunned. I cant see the animation, neither can the enemy. Modern animations completely block these crucial CC animations that are ACTUALLY IMPORTANT to the outcome of combat.

Another dizzy concept that might work with the new animation would be to make dizzy get a crystal frag like proc. After successfully hitting 2 consecutive dizzy swings on a target, your third swing is a 1s cast time and will stun the enemy with bonus damage. Here for the proc you could use the old long swing animation for a telegraph. Or save this concept for a rework of crystal weapon, this would fit well into the classic stamsorc kit and also fits right in to be a morph of crystal blast/frags

Critical charge

This animation is great actually. The screen blur makes the skill look fantastic combined with the sounds.

Players in ESO have too much movement speed though so unless gap closers do way more damage closer to spammables, there is no reason to drop a combat buff for a gap closer.

Cleave

This animation seems fine, again we just need to be careful overblowing these more spammed animations. If you overdo it, these generic spammables will hide more important animations and make players not understand what is going on.

Cleave also randomly makes your character stand still. I think this is an artifact of how conal abilites function.

Reverse slice

This animation is WAYYY too overblown. I cant even see the enemy half the time after doing the skill. How about you only do the big explosion animation if the skill does a killing blow?

Momentum

This animation is perfect.

The heal from rally makes it somewhat viable, except that something like healing soul VASTLY outpaces any other heal in the game. Minor endurance just doesnt compete with healing soul's major vitality. I could care less about minor endurance.

Forward momentum will never be used again because its buffs are terrible. The snare/root immunity should be 8s like it was long ago when it was used. Also the skill should have a small 1k/s hot on it that doesnt increase over time....just a simple extra bit of healing

Smash is just terrible so I am not going to talk about it. Does no damage, has nothing cool, costs too much, ehhhh

ceruulean · January 13

2h Animation Changes:

Really pleased and excited for all of them, except Reverse Slash and Berserker Strike.

Reverse Slash needs the angle to be restored to a top-down slash like its former animation. Right now it strikes diagonally, without the reverse twirl, and looks the same as the heavy attack animation but more reddish.

Berserker Strike feels slow, it looks cartoony like former Crit Charge, and the sound FX is too generic, and it doesn't have the iconic "bonk."

master_vanargand · January 13

Great. So, very good.
What this means is that in 4v4, you should decide the role of the healer.
For group healing, you should only use "Radiating Regeneration" and not "Echoing Vigor".
DPS and tanks can use just one HoT without any problems.
The penalty for having three or more HoTs is very well balanced.
"Ward Ally" will attract attention.
However, HoTs like "Radiating Regeneration" should not stack.
You don't want to accidentally receive two HoTs from another player.
Other morphs, like "Echoing Vigor" and "Resolving Vigor", should not stack.

MincMincMinc · January 13

master_vanargand wrote: »

Great. So, very good.
What this means is that in 4v4, you should decide the role of the healer.
For group healing, you should only use "Radiating Regeneration" and not "Echoing Vigor".
DPS and tanks can use just one HoT without any problems.
The penalty for having three or more HoTs is very well balanced.
"Ward Ally" will attract attention.
However, HoTs like "Radiating Regeneration" should not stack.
You don't want to accidentally receive two HoTs from another player.
Other morphs, like "Echoing Vigor" and "Resolving Vigor", should not stack.

No this is horrible, this means if any random player who thinks they are helping heals you......they will actually cut your healing by 50%.

So if I wanted to troll BG matches I could go in on a lvl10 no gear and spam Hots to get my own team killed.

master_vanargand · January 13

MincMincMinc wrote: »

master_vanargand wrote: »

Great. So, very good.
What this means is that in 4v4, you should decide the role of the healer.
For group healing, you should only use "Radiating Regeneration" and not "Echoing Vigor".
DPS and tanks can use just one HoT without any problems.
The penalty for having three or more HoTs is very well balanced.
"Ward Ally" will attract attention.
However, HoTs like "Radiating Regeneration" should not stack.
You don't want to accidentally receive two HoTs from another player.
Other morphs, like "Echoing Vigor" and "Resolving Vigor", should not stack.

No this is horrible, this means if any random player who thinks they are helping heals you......they will actually cut your healing by 50%.

So if I wanted to troll BG matches I could go in on a lvl10 no gear and spam Hots to get my own team killed.

I'm fine with Burst Heal, and if you stack HoT, that just saves me from having to use my HoT.
Playing inefficiently won't wipe you out, it will just make people dislike you.