BattleAxe wrote: »

My personal take whip could use a buff to its damage to bring it on bar to dragon beam. I’d also say leave standard as is. I think once dragon leap visuals are fixed and change it from knock back to knock down leap will be in a good spot and it is very iconic in my mind to a dragon knight. I’ve always wanted to use leap over standard for pve dps and with the changes it’s perfect for dk ultimate. I’d also ask the healing taken passive should get an addition of increase all flame dmg x% based on number of dk skills slotted I think 3% per dk skill should be decent.


Furthermore all dk dots should tik every second of their duration.

Standard applying buffs to Whip could bring it back from the dead for pure DK DPS ult. Plus, it would also be quite niche to whip builds. I firmly believe both Leap and Standard can be changed so that way both ults are viable for DPS for different scenarios. Further highlighting its identity and uniqueness. It doesn’t have to be black and white, nor should it be. I say this because I personally enjoy the Standard of Might’s playstyle and I don’t want it taken away from me.

LtClungeX wrote: »

This is the exact opposite of my opinion.

If you make class lines more modular they will be easier to balance for both sublcassing and full class, having dps skills dragon fire breath and leap, placed randomly in draconic power what is mostly a skill line for cc and support makes no sense to me, in order to get the full ardent flame experience, I now have to slot both draconic and ardent. they should move cinder storm and dk standard to draconic power where the would synergize with chains and talons and move breath with leap to ardent flame, call ardent flame draconic fury or what ever, that way I get fracture in the dps skill line again like warden does.

what are the going to do with warden move sub assault and deep fissure in to green balance or winters embrace?

Its making subclassing redundant rather than optional. this is a scrolls game we should be able to play as we want like a scrolls game, if every class had a dedicated dps line healing line/tanking line cc skill line or what ever it would open up subclassing by adding more attractive skill lines than just, the current restoring light/aedric spear/ animal companions/assassination meta. just buff the lines that are under performing templar fucntions just fine without subclassing use that as a model for the others.

I don't want a future where we have spec bow in shadow or siphoning, jabs in restoring light or dawns wrath, or hurricane in deadric summoning or dark magic, just to nerf subclass.

To me this thinking is backwards.

I definitely understand you value the modular way of organising skills, and it makes sense before subclassing was introduced. However, I believe, subclassing changes everything for two main reasons:

1. I have a necro healer I'm choosing to subclass with. If I want to pick another skill line for additional healing I have to choose whether to swap out the tank skill line or the dps skill line. I could, of course, swap out the healing skill line but since I want to have a necromancer healer, what would be the point of that thematically? So if I want to heal and stay alive I should swap out the dps skill line to take another healing one. I now have two healing skill lines and a tank skill line. This is great for veteran trials where I really do just need to focus on healing and staying alive. However it makes solo play and questing so dull because it now takes foever to kill anything. If I swap out the tank line so I have two healing skill lines and a dps line This is good for solo content but not so great for veteran trials/dungeons. I could switch between the two for different playstyles but I personally find it a lot of mental effort as it changes how the character plays and feels, I'd rather keep my characters identity than constantly change it. I don't really like how swapping out one skill line leaves you devoid of

2. I think subclassing should have drawbacks. It shouldn't be an easy choice, you should be giving something up in order choose any other skill line. It should be more like, yes you can reconfigure your character to be extremely powerful or exactly the way you want.. but you have to give something up in order to do that. I know that in singleplayer Elder Scrolls games classes don't exist but that's been part of the core of the online version since it began. I guess if you wanted to shake iot up completely you wouldn't even pick a class and you could just have all the current class skill lines be learnable the same way weapon skill lines are but you can only access three at a time, but even if that were the case I'd prefer each skill line to be a mix of things not solely dps/heal/tank.

But that's just my preference.

Location, Location, Location (and some order)
The biggest problem with the new change to the DragonKnight is that even after changing and moving skills around it still has the same problem that it does now. The skills and passives in each skill line are nowhere comparable to the grouping of other classes. Each DragonKnight skill line is a mixture of DPS, Tank, and Healer abilities, making it not worth using over any other skill line that has 4-5 skills specific to each role. The dev team is always talking about a build’s “kit” and while the individual tools in this kit look useful, it looks like it was packed at random. Even if using all 3 skill lines offers multiple choices, it will not compare to a Hybrid build that uses 3 distinct skill lines for their role. It would be fine for every skill line to offer something for DPS, Tanking, and Healing if every other class was organized the same way. But, until they are, the DragonKnight will underperform when compared to these other classes and hybridizations.

Let’s compare the DragonKnight to the golden child, the Arcanist, using just the DPS role as an example. And this is not to say that Arcanist is too OP or the only class that does this, but if this is going to be the last class to get updated then this is what all other classes will be competing against. This also is not even about the values of these skills, but merely what you get in each class line. I also won’t be comparing synergies, because those require others to activate which is no use in solo content, and unreliable in randomized group play where no one is communicating.

The Arcanist DPS line is clearly Herald of the Tome
Skills
• The Unblinking Eye – Deals damage, Morph options for increased damage or tracking damage
• Runeblades – Mostly single target spamable, Morph options for increased damage or added AOE damage
• Fatecarver – AOE Channel damage, Morph options for added duration or add survivability
• Abyssal Impact – AOE semi-spamable, Morph options for increased damage or added survivability
•Tome-bearer’s Inspiration – Utility skill that increases damage, Morph option for increased damage (notice a theme yet?) or added sustainability
• The Imperfect Ring – DOT skill, Morph options for added AOE damage or crowd control

Passives
• Fated Fortune - Increased Critical Damage and healing by - buffs damage from all sources, and all healing done
• Harnessed Quintessence – Adds Weapon and Spell Damage – buffs damage from all sources and healing done
• Psychic Lesion – Adds status effect chance and damage - buff all status effects damage
•Splintered Secrets – Increased Penetration – buffs all damage done.

Ranking
• Of the 12 skill Morph options, 12 of them do or increase damage – 12/12
• Of the 4 Passives, 4 of them buff damage, and 4 of them buff all sources of damage – 8/8
And here we come to the main problem. Which is the DPS line for the DragonKnight
Every skill does damage, with an morph to augment the damage, and every passive increases all damage from any class/skill.

Let’s compare Ardent Flame because it used to be the more damage focused line.
Skills
• DragonKnight Standard – Utility skill to increase damage output and reduce damage input, Morph options for increased values or alternative damage source
• Lava Whip – Mostly single target spamable, Morph options for increased damage or added survivability
• Searing Strike – Single target DOT, Morph options for increased damage or add survivability that scales from Tanking stats
• *Core of Flame – Utility skill for sustainability with minimal damage, Morph options for an interrupt with increase in damage or added survivability
• Hearthfire – HOT skill, Morph options for increased healing when putting yourself in danger and Healing now scaling from Tanking stats
• Inferno – AOE/”DOT” skill, Morph options for increased damage and heals instead of damage

Passives
• Combustion – Restores resources
• Traumatic Burns – Target takes extra Flame damage and moves slower – Increased Flame damage from all sources
• *Fan the Flames - Adds Burning status effect chance and damage - buff Burning status effects damage
• Soul Ablaze - Increased Healing Taken

Ranking
• Of the 12 skill Morph options, 6 of them deal damage and scale from DPS stats (6/12)
• Of the 4 Passives, 2 of them buff damage, and 0 of them buff all sources of damage – 2/8
3 of the skill morphs don't do any damage, 1 of the damage morphs adds a heal, but it scales of health not damage stats. and Core of Flame is just rough (see below for more on this skill)

Rather than compare the next 2 lines, since this was probably the most DPS related, let’s look at a much more appealing grouping for skills and passives that can be solved by just moving the skills around into different skill lines and some differ orders. I only tweaked 3 skills and 2 passives to make them synergize better.

Ardent Flame (DPS line)
• *Dragon Leap - Modify both morphs to increase damage in some way.
• Lava whip
• *Dragonfire Breath – Lower base damage if it’s too high, but modify the Flamethrower Morph to proc the burning status effect with each tick. This will synergize with the class passives and give it something to make it unique to the other class beam skills
• Molten Weapons
• Dark Talons
• Seating Strike
• Passives
o Fan the Flames (increases Burning proc chance and Damage)
o Avalanche (increases damage up to 10%)
o World in ruin (increases damage done with AOE and DOT 7%) – why was this in the tank line with only 2 AOE/DOT skills?
o *Traumatic Burns (increase flame damage taken by 5% and reduce movement speed) – Modify this skill to increase all damage by 5% while target is burning. This synergizes with the skills procing burning and other passives effecting burring. 5% is roughly equivalent to damage increased from 3000 penetration, 12% crit damage or 6% crit chance that other classed offer. If there are concerns about this being too high in group content, make it 1% from all sources and an additional 4% from the caster, but in solo or 4 man dungeons with only 2 DPS, there is not enough fire damage to make this skill comparable. It also does nothing to buff damage if you want to play with a lighting or frost staff or any physical attacks.

Draconic Power (Tank/PVP line)
• Magma Armor
• Chains of Flame (A tank needs to pull and taunt things)
• Earthspike Mantle (A tank needs armor before unlocking its final skill)
• Dragon Blood
• Wing Buffet
• Petrify
•Passives
o Heart of Stone (2974 Armor)
o Burnished Scales (increases block 10%)
o Storm Voice (Restores resources when using ultimate)
o Combustion (Restores resources when procing burning)

Earthen Heart (Healer/Support line)
• DragonKnight Standard
• Superheated Ward
• *Core of Flame– This skill is trying to do too many things that it doesn’t do anything well. There are multiple ways to fix this, but here are 2
o Option 1: Modify the skill cost to scale off your highest resource, then increase the amount it returns, but only have it return your lowest resource. It could also have a longer duration rather than increase the amount per tick
o Option 2: Revert the skill back to the previous version, but make one morph deal interrupting followed by a damage explosion and the other morph absorbing resources and exploding with an AOE heal that scales based on the number of enemies hit with the initial resource absorption (this option fits better with the DragonKnight having multiple healing skills that encourage it to stand with the DPS near the damage)
• Hearthfire
• Obsidian Shield
• Inferno
• Passives
o Blessing at the Peak (generates Ultimate)
o Ender Dragon (Adds Minor Brutality and health recovery) heath recovery is no good in PVP
o Mountain Giant (Heavy Attacks set off balance and restore Stamina)
o *Soul Ablaze (Increases Healing Taken by 8%) – Modify to increase Shield size by 8% or healing done and shield size by 4% each. This will make it a much stronger support line.

New Rankings
Arden Flame (DPS Line)
• Of the 12 skill Morph options, 10 of them deal significant damage and scale from DPS stats (9/12)
• Of the 4 Passives, 4 of them buff damage, and 3 of them buff all sources of damage – 7/8

Draconic Power (Tank/DPS)
• Of the 12 skill Morph options, 10 of them offer survivability, crowd control or CC resistance (10/12)
• Of the 4 Passives, 4 offer survivability and sustain, and all 4 are needed for PVP and at least 2 would be needed for Tanking (even if you had a good healer) – 7/8

Earthen Heart
• Of the 12 skill Morph options, 11 of them either heal/buff your party members or debuff the enemy (11/12)
o There’s been a lot of talk about the Draconic Standard, and which morph should buff vs cause damage but I chose to put it here because Dragon leap increases the damage and the flame thrower, Magma shell is one of the best tank ultimates and Corrosive Armor is really only useful in PVP, while the Standard now buffs other team members.
• Of the 4 Passives, 3 of them directly supports other players, and at least 2 of the 4 will compliment any rule – 5/8

This makes the DragonKnight much more comparable to other classes when looking at their roles. It matches the passives with the skills they are using and offers enticing options for someone to choose a DragonKnight skill line to add to their own. If you want to run as a pure DK you still have that option but can also hybridize into other classes without losing over half the skills and passives you need for your role. This class is so close to being good. Let's just make it make more sense.

GuardianV wrote: »

Location, Location, Location (and some order)
The biggest problem with the new change to the DragonKnight is that even after changing and moving skills around it still has the same problem that it does now. The skills and passives in each skill line are nowhere comparable to the grouping of other classes. Each DragonKnight skill line is a mixture of DPS, Tank, and Healer abilities, making it not worth using over any other skill line that has 4-5 skills specific to each role. The dev team is always talking about a build’s “kit” and while the individual tools in this kit look useful, it looks like it was packed at random. Even if using all 3 skill lines offers multiple choices, it will not compare to a Hybrid build that uses 3 distinct skill lines for their role. It would be fine for every skill line to offer something for DPS, Tanking, and Healing if every other class was organized the same way. But, until they are, the DragonKnight will underperform when compared to these other classes and hybridizations.

This is the point though.

As each class gets their refresh, they're planning to break this up. They want each Class line to have options for each role, and to not allow for this system of "one line per role."

See the article:

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).

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.

With subclassing, however, this model introduced a slew of challenges and imbalances where now the ideal way to play would involve picking a role-specific line from every class. This created a sense that it was largely ineffective to stay true to your class, and that the power difference between those who do and do not was larger than any other build permutations before.

This also hurt and exasperated an already existing problem space of class identity feeling like it took a back seat to gameplay. As such, we’ll be adjusting skill lines to follow a more theme- and identity-focused model as we work on each class, where we blend a healthy mix of tools and effects for every role in each.

It is our hope that every skill line will offer something you can use regardless of your role, while simultaneously spreading out the power that makes a class come to life and drive home the sensation that staying true to your class is also a much more viable and distinct option.

It does mean that the earlier Classes will have a more difficult time until they get to NB or Arcanist, but it is going in that direction.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

GuardianV wrote: »

Location, Location, Location (and some order)
The biggest problem with the new change to the DragonKnight is that even after changing and moving skills around it still has the same problem that it does now. The skills and passives in each skill line are nowhere comparable to the grouping of other classes. Each DragonKnight skill line is a mixture of DPS, Tank, and Healer abilities, making it not worth using over any other skill line that has 4-5 skills specific to each role. The dev team is always talking about a build’s “kit” and while the individual tools in this kit look useful, it looks like it was packed at random. Even if using all 3 skill lines offers multiple choices, it will not compare to a Hybrid build that uses 3 distinct skill lines for their role. It would be fine for every skill line to offer something for DPS, Tanking, and Healing if every other class was organized the same way. But, until they are, the DragonKnight will underperform when compared to these other classes and hybridizations.

This is the point though.

It may be the point, but the point will be making the game less good. Consolidated skill lines are cool.

GuardianV wrote: »

Location, Location, Location (and some order)
The biggest problem with the new change to the DragonKnight is that even after changing and moving skills around it still has the same problem that it does now. The skills and passives in each skill line are nowhere comparable to the grouping of other classes. Each DragonKnight skill line is a mixture of DPS, Tank, and Healer abilities, making it not worth using over any other skill line that has 4-5 skills specific to each role. The dev team is always talking about a build’s “kit” and while the individual tools in this kit look useful, it looks like it was packed at random. Even if using all 3 skill lines offers multiple choices, it will not compare to a Hybrid build that uses 3 distinct skill lines for their role. It would be fine for every skill line to offer something for DPS, Tanking, and Healing if every other class was organized the same way. But, until they are, the DragonKnight will underperform when compared to these other classes and hybridizations.

Let’s compare the DragonKnight to the golden child, the Arcanist, using just the DPS role as an example. And this is not to say that Arcanist is too OP or the only class that does this, but if this is going to be the last class to get updated then this is what all other classes will be competing against. This also is not even about the values of these skills, but merely what you get in each class line. I also won’t be comparing synergies, because those require others to activate which is no use in solo content, and unreliable in randomized group play where no one is communicating.

The Arcanist DPS line is clearly Herald of the Tome
Skills
• The Unblinking Eye – Deals damage, Morph options for increased damage or tracking damage
• Runeblades – Mostly single target spamable, Morph options for increased damage or added AOE damage
• Fatecarver – AOE Channel damage, Morph options for added duration or add survivability
• Abyssal Impact – AOE semi-spamable, Morph options for increased damage or added survivability
•Tome-bearer’s Inspiration – Utility skill that increases damage, Morph option for increased damage (notice a theme yet?) or added sustainability
• The Imperfect Ring – DOT skill, Morph options for added AOE damage or crowd control

Passives
• Fated Fortune - Increased Critical Damage and healing by - buffs damage from all sources, and all healing done
• Harnessed Quintessence – Adds Weapon and Spell Damage – buffs damage from all sources and healing done
• Psychic Lesion – Adds status effect chance and damage - buff all status effects damage
•Splintered Secrets – Increased Penetration – buffs all damage done.

Ranking
• Of the 12 skill Morph options, 12 of them do or increase damage – 12/12
• Of the 4 Passives, 4 of them buff damage, and 4 of them buff all sources of damage – 8/8
And here we come to the main problem. Which is the DPS line for the DragonKnight
Every skill does damage, with an morph to augment the damage, and every passive increases all damage from any class/skill.

Let’s compare Ardent Flame because it used to be the more damage focused line.
Skills
• DragonKnight Standard – Utility skill to increase damage output and reduce damage input, Morph options for increased values or alternative damage source
• Lava Whip – Mostly single target spamable, Morph options for increased damage or added survivability
• Searing Strike – Single target DOT, Morph options for increased damage or add survivability that scales from Tanking stats
• *Core of Flame – Utility skill for sustainability with minimal damage, Morph options for an interrupt with increase in damage or added survivability
• Hearthfire – HOT skill, Morph options for increased healing when putting yourself in danger and Healing now scaling from Tanking stats
• Inferno – AOE/”DOT” skill, Morph options for increased damage and heals instead of damage

Passives
• Combustion – Restores resources
• Traumatic Burns – Target takes extra Flame damage and moves slower – Increased Flame damage from all sources
• *Fan the Flames - Adds Burning status effect chance and damage - buff Burning status effects damage
• Soul Ablaze - Increased Healing Taken

Ranking
• Of the 12 skill Morph options, 6 of them deal damage and scale from DPS stats (6/12)
• Of the 4 Passives, 2 of them buff damage, and 0 of them buff all sources of damage – 2/8
3 of the skill morphs don't do any damage, 1 of the damage morphs adds a heal, but it scales of health not damage stats. and Core of Flame is just rough (see below for more on this skill)

Rather than compare the next 2 lines, since this was probably the most DPS related, let’s look at a much more appealing grouping for skills and passives that can be solved by just moving the skills around into different skill lines and some differ orders. I only tweaked 3 skills and 2 passives to make them synergize better.

Ardent Flame (DPS line)
• *Dragon Leap - Modify both morphs to increase damage in some way.
• Lava whip
• *Dragonfire Breath – Lower base damage if it’s too high, but modify the Flamethrower Morph to proc the burning status effect with each tick. This will synergize with the class passives and give it something to make it unique to the other class beam skills
• Molten Weapons
• Dark Talons
• Seating Strike
• Passives
o Fan the Flames (increases Burning proc chance and Damage)
o Avalanche (increases damage up to 10%)
o World in ruin (increases damage done with AOE and DOT 7%) – why was this in the tank line with only 2 AOE/DOT skills?
o *Traumatic Burns (increase flame damage taken by 5% and reduce movement speed) – Modify this skill to increase all damage by 5% while target is burning. This synergizes with the skills procing burning and other passives effecting burring. 5% is roughly equivalent to damage increased from 3000 penetration, 12% crit damage or 6% crit chance that other classed offer. If there are concerns about this being too high in group content, make it 1% from all sources and an additional 4% from the caster, but in solo or 4 man dungeons with only 2 DPS, there is not enough fire damage to make this skill comparable. It also does nothing to buff damage if you want to play with a lighting or frost staff or any physical attacks.

Draconic Power (Tank/PVP line)
• Magma Armor
• Chains of Flame (A tank needs to pull and taunt things)
• Earthspike Mantle (A tank needs armor before unlocking its final skill)
• Dragon Blood
• Wing Buffet
• Petrify
•Passives
o Heart of Stone (2974 Armor)
o Burnished Scales (increases block 10%)
o Storm Voice (Restores resources when using ultimate)
o Combustion (Restores resources when procing burning)

Earthen Heart (Healer/Support line)
• DragonKnight Standard
• Superheated Ward
• *Core of Flame– This skill is trying to do too many things that it doesn’t do anything well. There are multiple ways to fix this, but here are 2
o Option 1: Modify the skill cost to scale off your highest resource, then increase the amount it returns, but only have it return your lowest resource. It could also have a longer duration rather than increase the amount per tick
o Option 2: Revert the skill back to the previous version, but make one morph deal interrupting followed by a damage explosion and the other morph absorbing resources and exploding with an AOE heal that scales based on the number of enemies hit with the initial resource absorption (this option fits better with the DragonKnight having multiple healing skills that encourage it to stand with the DPS near the damage)
• Hearthfire
• Obsidian Shield
• Inferno
• Passives
o Blessing at the Peak (generates Ultimate)
o Ender Dragon (Adds Minor Brutality and health recovery) heath recovery is no good in PVP
o Mountain Giant (Heavy Attacks set off balance and restore Stamina)
o *Soul Ablaze (Increases Healing Taken by 8%) – Modify to increase Shield size by 8% or healing done and shield size by 4% each. This will make it a much stronger support line.

New Rankings
Arden Flame (DPS Line)
• Of the 12 skill Morph options, 10 of them deal significant damage and scale from DPS stats (9/12)
• Of the 4 Passives, 4 of them buff damage, and 3 of them buff all sources of damage – 7/8

Draconic Power (Tank/DPS)
• Of the 12 skill Morph options, 10 of them offer survivability, crowd control or CC resistance (10/12)
• Of the 4 Passives, 4 offer survivability and sustain, and all 4 are needed for PVP and at least 2 would be needed for Tanking (even if you had a good healer) – 7/8

Earthen Heart
• Of the 12 skill Morph options, 11 of them either heal/buff your party members or debuff the enemy (11/12)
o There’s been a lot of talk about the Draconic Standard, and which morph should buff vs cause damage but I chose to put it here because Dragon leap increases the damage and the flame thrower, Magma shell is one of the best tank ultimates and Corrosive Armor is really only useful in PVP, while the Standard now buffs other team members.
• Of the 4 Passives, 3 of them directly supports other players, and at least 2 of the 4 will compliment any rule – 5/8

This makes the DragonKnight much more comparable to other classes when looking at their roles. It matches the passives with the skills they are using and offers enticing options for someone to choose a DragonKnight skill line to add to their own. If you want to run as a pure DK you still have that option but can also hybridize into other classes without losing over half the skills and passives you need for your role. This class is so close to being good. Let's just make it make more sense.

The primary goal is to make one hesitate to give up skill lines to subclass. The secondary reason the lines have something for each role is to not make it so easy to subclass. Your right dragonknight is the first class but not only class being reworked. Not to mention dk took the longest due to the major overhaul dk took after warden and sorc it’s a safe bet the last 4 Templar, Nightblade, Necromancer, Arcanist will likely be 2 at a time if not all 4 at once since they will likely need the least amount of work.

Summary: biggest goal of reworking every class is to make pure classes a competitive option to current subclassing. Which after every class rework comes and goes subclassing will likely have lost most appeal aside from very niche situations example a pure summoner/conjuration class

BattleAxe wrote: »

GuardianV wrote: »

Location, Location, Location (and some order)
The biggest problem with the new change to the DragonKnight is that even after changing and moving skills around it still has the same problem that it does now. The skills and passives in each skill line are nowhere comparable to the grouping of other classes. Each DragonKnight skill line is a mixture of DPS, Tank, and Healer abilities, making it not worth using over any other skill line that has 4-5 skills specific to each role. The dev team is always talking about a build’s “kit” and while the individual tools in this kit look useful, it looks like it was packed at random. Even if using all 3 skill lines offers multiple choices, it will not compare to a Hybrid build that uses 3 distinct skill lines for their role. It would be fine for every skill line to offer something for DPS, Tanking, and Healing if every other class was organized the same way. But, until they are, the DragonKnight will underperform when compared to these other classes and hybridizations.

Let’s compare the DragonKnight to the golden child, the Arcanist, using just the DPS role as an example. And this is not to say that Arcanist is too OP or the only class that does this, but if this is going to be the last class to get updated then this is what all other classes will be competing against. This also is not even about the values of these skills, but merely what you get in each class line. I also won’t be comparing synergies, because those require others to activate which is no use in solo content, and unreliable in randomized group play where no one is communicating.

The Arcanist DPS line is clearly Herald of the Tome
Skills
• The Unblinking Eye – Deals damage, Morph options for increased damage or tracking damage
• Runeblades – Mostly single target spamable, Morph options for increased damage or added AOE damage
• Fatecarver – AOE Channel damage, Morph options for added duration or add survivability
• Abyssal Impact – AOE semi-spamable, Morph options for increased damage or added survivability
•Tome-bearer’s Inspiration – Utility skill that increases damage, Morph option for increased damage (notice a theme yet?) or added sustainability
• The Imperfect Ring – DOT skill, Morph options for added AOE damage or crowd control

Passives
• Fated Fortune - Increased Critical Damage and healing by - buffs damage from all sources, and all healing done
• Harnessed Quintessence – Adds Weapon and Spell Damage – buffs damage from all sources and healing done
• Psychic Lesion – Adds status effect chance and damage - buff all status effects damage
•Splintered Secrets – Increased Penetration – buffs all damage done.

Ranking
• Of the 12 skill Morph options, 12 of them do or increase damage – 12/12
• Of the 4 Passives, 4 of them buff damage, and 4 of them buff all sources of damage – 8/8
And here we come to the main problem. Which is the DPS line for the DragonKnight
Every skill does damage, with an morph to augment the damage, and every passive increases all damage from any class/skill.

Let’s compare Ardent Flame because it used to be the more damage focused line.
Skills
• DragonKnight Standard – Utility skill to increase damage output and reduce damage input, Morph options for increased values or alternative damage source
• Lava Whip – Mostly single target spamable, Morph options for increased damage or added survivability
• Searing Strike – Single target DOT, Morph options for increased damage or add survivability that scales from Tanking stats
• *Core of Flame – Utility skill for sustainability with minimal damage, Morph options for an interrupt with increase in damage or added survivability
• Hearthfire – HOT skill, Morph options for increased healing when putting yourself in danger and Healing now scaling from Tanking stats
• Inferno – AOE/”DOT” skill, Morph options for increased damage and heals instead of damage

Passives
• Combustion – Restores resources
• Traumatic Burns – Target takes extra Flame damage and moves slower – Increased Flame damage from all sources
• *Fan the Flames - Adds Burning status effect chance and damage - buff Burning status effects damage
• Soul Ablaze - Increased Healing Taken

Ranking
• Of the 12 skill Morph options, 6 of them deal damage and scale from DPS stats (6/12)
• Of the 4 Passives, 2 of them buff damage, and 0 of them buff all sources of damage – 2/8
3 of the skill morphs don't do any damage, 1 of the damage morphs adds a heal, but it scales of health not damage stats. and Core of Flame is just rough (see below for more on this skill)

Rather than compare the next 2 lines, since this was probably the most DPS related, let’s look at a much more appealing grouping for skills and passives that can be solved by just moving the skills around into different skill lines and some differ orders. I only tweaked 3 skills and 2 passives to make them synergize better.

Ardent Flame (DPS line)
• *Dragon Leap - Modify both morphs to increase damage in some way.
• Lava whip
• *Dragonfire Breath – Lower base damage if it’s too high, but modify the Flamethrower Morph to proc the burning status effect with each tick. This will synergize with the class passives and give it something to make it unique to the other class beam skills
• Molten Weapons
• Dark Talons
• Seating Strike
• Passives
o Fan the Flames (increases Burning proc chance and Damage)
o Avalanche (increases damage up to 10%)
o World in ruin (increases damage done with AOE and DOT 7%) – why was this in the tank line with only 2 AOE/DOT skills?
o *Traumatic Burns (increase flame damage taken by 5% and reduce movement speed) – Modify this skill to increase all damage by 5% while target is burning. This synergizes with the skills procing burning and other passives effecting burring. 5% is roughly equivalent to damage increased from 3000 penetration, 12% crit damage or 6% crit chance that other classed offer. If there are concerns about this being too high in group content, make it 1% from all sources and an additional 4% from the caster, but in solo or 4 man dungeons with only 2 DPS, there is not enough fire damage to make this skill comparable. It also does nothing to buff damage if you want to play with a lighting or frost staff or any physical attacks.

Draconic Power (Tank/PVP line)
• Magma Armor
• Chains of Flame (A tank needs to pull and taunt things)
• Earthspike Mantle (A tank needs armor before unlocking its final skill)
• Dragon Blood
• Wing Buffet
• Petrify
•Passives
o Heart of Stone (2974 Armor)
o Burnished Scales (increases block 10%)
o Storm Voice (Restores resources when using ultimate)
o Combustion (Restores resources when procing burning)

Earthen Heart (Healer/Support line)
• DragonKnight Standard
• Superheated Ward
• *Core of Flame– This skill is trying to do too many things that it doesn’t do anything well. There are multiple ways to fix this, but here are 2
o Option 1: Modify the skill cost to scale off your highest resource, then increase the amount it returns, but only have it return your lowest resource. It could also have a longer duration rather than increase the amount per tick
o Option 2: Revert the skill back to the previous version, but make one morph deal interrupting followed by a damage explosion and the other morph absorbing resources and exploding with an AOE heal that scales based on the number of enemies hit with the initial resource absorption (this option fits better with the DragonKnight having multiple healing skills that encourage it to stand with the DPS near the damage)
• Hearthfire
• Obsidian Shield
• Inferno
• Passives
o Blessing at the Peak (generates Ultimate)
o Ender Dragon (Adds Minor Brutality and health recovery) heath recovery is no good in PVP
o Mountain Giant (Heavy Attacks set off balance and restore Stamina)
o *Soul Ablaze (Increases Healing Taken by 8%) – Modify to increase Shield size by 8% or healing done and shield size by 4% each. This will make it a much stronger support line.

New Rankings
Arden Flame (DPS Line)
• Of the 12 skill Morph options, 10 of them deal significant damage and scale from DPS stats (9/12)
• Of the 4 Passives, 4 of them buff damage, and 3 of them buff all sources of damage – 7/8

Draconic Power (Tank/DPS)
• Of the 12 skill Morph options, 10 of them offer survivability, crowd control or CC resistance (10/12)
• Of the 4 Passives, 4 offer survivability and sustain, and all 4 are needed for PVP and at least 2 would be needed for Tanking (even if you had a good healer) – 7/8

Earthen Heart
• Of the 12 skill Morph options, 11 of them either heal/buff your party members or debuff the enemy (11/12)
o There’s been a lot of talk about the Draconic Standard, and which morph should buff vs cause damage but I chose to put it here because Dragon leap increases the damage and the flame thrower, Magma shell is one of the best tank ultimates and Corrosive Armor is really only useful in PVP, while the Standard now buffs other team members.
• Of the 4 Passives, 3 of them directly supports other players, and at least 2 of the 4 will compliment any rule – 5/8

This makes the DragonKnight much more comparable to other classes when looking at their roles. It matches the passives with the skills they are using and offers enticing options for someone to choose a DragonKnight skill line to add to their own. If you want to run as a pure DK you still have that option but can also hybridize into other classes without losing over half the skills and passives you need for your role. This class is so close to being good. Let's just make it make more sense.

The primary goal is to make one hesitate to give up skill lines to subclass. The secondary reason the lines have something for each role is to not make it so easy to subclass. Your right dragonknight is the first class but not only class being reworked. Not to mention dk took the longest due to the major overhaul dk took after warden and sorc it’s a safe bet the last 4 Templar, Nightblade, Necromancer, Arcanist will likely be 2 at a time if not all 4 at once since they will likely need the least amount of work.

Summary: biggest goal of reworking every class is to make pure classes a competitive option to current subclassing. Which after every class rework comes and goes subclassing will likely have lost most appeal aside from very niche situations example a pure summoner/conjuration class

There is this hesitation you mention until the meta is redecided in about 2 weeks post-update. I don't really think all of the changes are worth it and that is especially because they are killing core ways that I've enjoyed playing for year.

What makes these changes sick and twisted is how left behind and nerfed dragon knight has been. Designers could have came out with a bang and buffed the class. There are some dyanmics of it that are being further nerfed and that's downright evil given the classes history.

And what is exactly the point of all of this? To make pure-classes stronger? So they are making a change that invalidates how people have been enjoying the identity of their class so that the sub-classing update can become invalidated so that players can once again enjoy what their class originally had to offer except that they cant because of the large and sweeping changes? These goings ons are all backwards and make zero sense when following them to their logical conclusion.

Hi all,
So I really wanted to do a deep analysis onto the entire kit, so I've spent most of the week playing around with this on PTS to get feelings on every skill in all lines.

I'll caveat that I'm not a numbers person; I tank in high-end and really just dabble otherwise. However, I'm really into character building and the look and feel of everything. I also main a DK and I really try to keep him pureclass as much as possible since that was the theme I made him around. As such, I'm not that good a judge of DPS numbers or parses, but I'm making this analysis on how the skills look and feel to play with.

A general thing is that I do think some of the skills are a bit too saturated - the newer fire effects are very saturated and tend to the redder end of the spectrum, whereas the fire effects we have in the basegame are not as intends and trend a bit more yellowish. I do think that trying to match some of the flames across the game would be better, and there is a lot of visual overstimulation so I do prefer the more realistic flames of the basegame to the saturated effects we have on some of the skills now.

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As for the kit, I've broken it down by skill line below:

   ARDENT FLAME

Dragonknight Standard: The new version of this skill is quite interesting. I do miss the damage from the old Standard of Might, but I can see that we still have that option in the other morph. I think one of the main things people are annoyed about is the fact that Shifting was never used in PvE because it was objectively weaker than Might. The other issue is that, if it is designed that DDs move to using Dragon Leap as an ultimate, that severely lessens the desire to take Ardent Flame as a Subclass.
What I would like to see here is giving a bit of power back to Shifting, but not overwhelmingly. It does feel like Might would be a good skill for support-DDs (like the standard Z’enkosh), but Shifting still has its place in PvP with the Defile and the ability to move it. I would do the following:

• Have the DoT from shifting standard ramp up by a percentage each tick while an enemy is in the area. That would reward PvE a bit where the boss is not moving as the DPS would go up over time, but still allow it to be moved in the case of a moving boss, e.g. Z’maja porting around.
• Add a visual effect to show the ground DoT. Currently both morphs of standard look the same, so a ground effect would show which is the morph that does damage over time.
• The name “Shifting Standard” is a bit underwhelming compared to “Standard of Might.” I would change the name of the morph to something like “Warlord’s Domination” to really drive home the idea of razing the battlefield.

Lava Whip: I don’t have too many issues here. The two different ‘final hit’ animations proc differently, and the little AoE splash from the Flame Lash morph synergizes very well with Earthen Heart’s passives to make it good for pureclasses, while still enabling that for players in groups who can proc Off Balance too.

Searing Strike: These both work, but they are very same-y. I wonder if it would be better to change the effects of the base morph and the Burning Ember morph to be a single slash instead of three claw swipes to match the icon? I do love the new animations though, especially the fact that you get one swipe with each hand. There’s only one major change I would make here:

• The Searing Claw icon is green, which no longer fits. This would be better in red/orange like this quick mock job:
  
  Come to think of it, maybe the other icons should also be claws instead of swords to match the effects.

Core of Flame: The loss of Deep Breath is a bit sad - that skill did only have niche uses, but it did come in very handy in certain locations. The delayed interrupt and severely delayed burst do hinder its ability to be used. Having said that, the new version does wonders for sustain, and is excellent in PvP to give DK a delayed damage burst.
On the other hand, there is also significant overlap with this skill in terms of the visuals and damage with Inferno, so something to differentiate the two skills would be great. See the gifs below showing the burst of both Core of Flame (this is the Heart of Flame morph) and Inferno (Incinerate morph)

I particularly like the effects on Live where enemies are tethered while you absorb their essence and release it in a burst later, and would like to see that return along with the use cases of Live's Deep Breath.
I would change the skills thusly:

• Base morph (Core of Flame): as it is on PTS, but also including a heal as the Heart of Flame morph does. That heal may need to be toned down slightly though.
• Soul of Flame morph: increases the damage of the final explosion as in the PTS Soul of Flame Morph
• New morph (might need a cooler name than "Deep Breath"): Similar to Deep Breath is on live - instantly interrupts enemies that are casting and heals you for X per enemy hit. After 2.5 seconds, you burst and do 100-150% of the healing done as flame damage to enemies around you. (Requires an enemy to be hit to heal and damage as on Live)
  The effects should also be as they are on Live, with the tethers pulling from enemies with the inhale.
  
• Swap the icons of the morphs around. The two morphed abilities use similar icons which could be used for the base morph and the Soul of Flame morph. The current base morph icon looks very different and would fit better as the icon for the Deep Breath morph.

Hearthfire: Both of these morphs are also very similar to each other, and the loss of the damaging morph in Eruption was a bit sad to see go. I’d prefer merging the two current morphs and then bringing eruption back.
In addition, these are ground HoTs with a cost-per-second. The only other skills in the game that have a cost-per-second are channelled abilities, and those work because you can cancel them at will. There’s no way to cancel a ground effect, so having these have incremental costs is inconsistent with every other ground effect in the game. Having said that, this does leave these having oppressively high costs due to the length of the effect, but I will note that the Restoration Staff’s Illustrious Healing morph is also an 8m, 15sec ability with a comparable heal and a cost of 3510 (i.e. 234/sec), so the cost could be similar to that.
I would do the following:

• Change the cost of all morphs to an upfront cost, higher than Illustrious Healing but less than the full cost of them on PTS
• Base morph (Hearthfire): as it is on PTS, but add the increased healing if you’re standing in the area from the current Fire Keeper morph. Maybe not 50% though, that might be too much.
• Fire Keeper morph: add in the Protection from the Hearth and Home morph and reduce the cost as the ability ranks up.
• Eruption morph: keep the PTS animation with the dropping fireball, but revert the effect to the Live Eruption morph - Deal some flame damage immediately as the fireball lands, and then do a flame DoT with a snare. Decrease the radius of the effect to 6m. It also will need a ground effect to show the danger zone instead of just a fire ring.

Inferno: The morph ideas are good, but there is no effect for Cauterize showing that it is healing anyone. The skill does not burst out radially at all, so the only way to tell it’s healing is to have combat numbers turned on. In the image below, the skill is active and you can see the healing numbers, but there is no effect coming from my character to the other and really no way to tell that the other character is receiving healing other than having those numbers enabled.

• Cauterize needs to have a burst effect (preferably something that looks a bit different from Inferno’s explosion, so like sparkly golden embers or something) to show that it’s doing something.

Passives: Nothing major. The tooltip for Fan the Flames doesn’t explain how the number of slotted DK skills affects the chance of applying burning or its damage done, so that would be nice to have in there.

   DRACONIC POWER

Dragon Leap: These are fun and I do love the idea of making one of the morphs able to empower subsequent attacks. However, the logic of the knockback is mixed up.
As Take Flight does more damage and is increasing damage done and empowering Dragonfire as well, it implies that this morph is designed for damage dealers. That means this morph should not be affecting grouping. The Ferocious Leap morph includes a shield and implies you want space, so it should have the knockback. I would change them as follows:

• The base morph (Dragon Leap) should have the knock up function to avoid messing up grouping.
• The Take Flight morph should change the knockback into a knock down so it does not affect the grouping of enemies in PvE.
• The Ferocious Leap morph should be given the 4m knockback from the other morph to retain that feeling of power as you crash down, and also allow you to have a breather with the shield and getting enemies away.
• The morph names may not be appropriate to their functionality. I would switch them so that Ferocious is the morph that empowers attacks and Take Flight is the one that gives space and shields.

Dragonfire Breath: I do enjoy the new channelled version of breath. My main concern here is the new animations - the Live version does make the character’s mouth a bit more open, while the PTS (both morphs) have the character with a relatively neutral face and just a slack jaw and not properly griping their weapon. I'd really like just a minor modification to the face so they really open their mouth and screw up their face in anger, but it'd be cool to grip the weapon properly too.

Apart from this, the only change I’d make would be:

• Engulfing Dragonfire should have a cost-per-second instead of an upfront cost like other similar channelled abilities.

Dark Talons: These skills are fine, but the effect of the ring of fire on activation may be unnecessary. We know enemies are affected if they get the claw animation, so the ring effect does not really tell anything and just adds to visual clutter.

Dragon Blood: These are good, the only issue is the effects.

• Please consider removing the floating heart effect, and extending the chest x-ray effect for the full timer of the Fortitude/Courage buff.

Wing Buffet: Fine, but please check the wording of the tooltip for Fleetstep Wings. That is currently a nonsensical word salad.


Chains of Flame: Fine. The loss of Expedition hurts a bit since I use it all the time, but it makes sense and I'll deal with it.

Passives: Considering the whole rework of classes and the hybridization that already exists in the game, is it appropriate for Elder Dragon to only give minor Brutality instead of Brutality and Sorcery?
The Storm Voice (Battle Roar was actually a really cool name and I would prefer that to be honest) also is restoring resources based on abilities slotted on the active bar. Would it be better to reduce the resources per skill but count skills on both bars? In that way, you won’t end up with a case where one bar’s ultimate does very little.

   EARTHEN HEART

Magma Armor: The change to Magma Armor to make the radius larger is an excellent change. The problems with this skill are that Corrosive seems to still be a bit too strong if all attacks are ignoring armor and the DoT is much heavier than it is on Live. It probably needs to have a severely reduced damage limit to balance it for PvP encounters. Also, the restriction on ultimate generation while active are more pronounced on PTS with the base and Magma Shell morphs since it’s 150% as long as it is on Live. I propose the following:

• Allow the base morph and the Magma Shell morphs to generate Ultimate while active. In order to prevent edge cases like the “perma-magma” strategies in the Archive, the skill itself could have a cooldown of 30+ seconds to prevent living in a semi-invulnerable state
• Rebalance the Corrosive Armor morph to do less AoE damage or to severely reduce or eliminate the damage limit.
• Recolor the icon for Corrosive Armor from green to red. Looking at UESP, I'm seeing that the icon was changed in U10 to the green one, so it could go back to the pre-U10 version shown below.
  
  Honestly, the better solution would probably be to make the recolored icon for Corrosive Armor into the base skill icon and give the current base skill icon (which looks like flame extending out, shown below) to the Corrosive morph as it seems to fit more logically with Corrosive as a dot radiating outwards, while the base morph is strictly a damage mitigation armor.
  
  Also, with the lack of poison damage, “Corrosive” may no longer be an appropriate name, and something to the effect of “Melting” may be better.

Superheated Ward: The skill is fine, but the animation is odd. On Live, Stone Giant currently has different animations where each stone orb is thrown with an alternating hand. It may be nice to see the rock toss of Magma Fist with alternating hands like that.

As for the base and Volcanic Ward morphs, it still uses a pull-and-throw animation when it applies a shield to yourself, which makes no sense logically. Is there a different motion that could be used that doesn’t look like throwing something when it applies to yourself?
Finally, Volcanic Ward seems to invariably favor putting the shield on yourself unless an ally is hurt, making it more difficult to apply the shield and buff to a character proactively.

Molten Weapons: It’s fine. I was hoping it would apply an effect over the weapons like Arcanist’s Inspiration does instead of replacing the weapons completely. It would be cool to get an overlay instead of a replacer (and then you could just give those already-completed magma weapon models to your cosmetics team for a future Crown Store/Tamriel Tomes purchase…)

Obsidian Shield: No issues here

Petrify: Fine, but this skill is still very difficult to use in PvE. Adding the Minor Vuln to the Fossilize morph does look like an attempt to do that, but this skill is crippled by the melee range. Compared to Warden’s Swarm and Arcanist’s Rune of Eldritch Horror, there’s no reason to use Fossilize.

• Increase the range for the Fossilize morph to 15m or even 28m. The immobilize after the stun may not be needed if that is too strong.

Earthspike Mantle: No issues here, save the armor visual that is already discussed elsewhere.

Passives: There is a bit of naming weirdness here. The name “Heart of Stone” makes little sense considering it’s an armor passive. “Stoneskin” may be more appropriate. “Avalanche,” while technically correct, does call to mind an ice theme, and “Rockslide” or “Landslide” may fit with the theme better.

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Ok, that was a wall of text.

Thanks for all of the work with this. I am kind of excited to see how these Class refreshes will make all of the other Classes feel. It does seem like it'll be a bit difficult for a while as some of the reasons for Subclassing being overpowered are not being touched until at least Summer 2027, but the plans to make the Class lines less strictly delineated by role does sound like a step in the right direction.

Hyper has now uploaded his feedback video. @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

https://youtu.be/eiajn4Ydk20?si=xl54gmBz0V0jUtjR

Edit: It’s really interesting to hear that Tzogvin might be making a comeback due to choosing more DK abilities over barbed trap.

I personally dislike that the skill trees are now mixed up.

I very much prefer the old split between damage, tank, healing / support skill lines. It is just so much easier to create builds around clearly separated skill lines if you´re not creating a pure MagDK with only class skills.

The point that annoys me the most is with the Ardent Flame skill tree from a StamDK perspective.

You changed two passives to now require either an Ardent Flame ability slotted or to do damage with it (Combustion & Traumatic Burns) but you moved the skill that is probably still the one most used by StamdDKs into another skill line (Draconic Power).

Noxious Breath must get back into Ardent Flame skill tree or change the passives in a way that they don´t rely on Ardent Flame abilities, please.