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

Personofsecrets · January 14

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Tank skills.
Dragon Blood

Talons

Chain

Wings (Group mitigation)

Worse than Polar Winds. (less reliable)

Worse than Gripping Shards. (more expensive, no chilled)

Worse than scribed chain. (Druid's Resurgence activates whether the target was pulled or not)

Radius too short for most situations (also already out of bar slots, and I gave them all Major Resolve with EFC).

Personofsecrets wrote: »

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Tank skills.
Dragon Blood

Talons

Chain

Wings (Group mitigation)

Worse than Polar Winds. (less reliable)

Worse than Gripping Shards. (more expensive, no chilled)

Worse than scribed chain. (Druid's Resurgence activates whether the target was pulled or not)

Radius too short for most situations (also already out of bar slots, and I gave them all Major Resolve with EFC).

Boom

And this is why what DK really needed was some buffs and mechanical changes, not a total revamp that rips everything about it apart.

Welcome to the world post-subclassing. If you think Warden has the better tools for tanking, then subclass into Warden. I don't like what subclassing has done to this game either, but without removing/limiting/punishing subclassing a "revamp that rips everything apart" is the only logical consequence of attempting to balance subclassing.
Also, Warden will be put on the chopping block too, so don't get comfortable thinking that Warden will have the better tanking tools forever.

Realistically the only things you can do now are:
demand subclassing be undone so none of this is necessary anymore and we can return to single-purpose dedicated skill lines,

participate in PTS and suggest balance improvements to the chopped up DK skills until pure DK has the tools you think are necessary,

play Warden and brace for the next set of changes,

or give up.

Updating all classes at the same time no longer seems like an option at this point, so prepare for a bumpy balance ride over the next years. I recommend option one and two.

I already sub-class warden. My character is simply getting worse and the playstyle that I've enjoyed for 11 years is getting completey upended. Subclassing isn't an issue for me. Designers purposefully breaking apart skill lines so that those skill lines are not only less good, but lose the tools and functionality that they have had for a decaded is a problem.

ESO wasn't built with subclassing in mind 11 years ago. Breaking the skill lines apart is necessary under the subclass paradigm because it makes every individual skill line less attractive to be subclassed, which becomes a major issue if you use multiple tanking or DPS skill lines. If the DK's entire supporting power is in Earthen Heart, then any non-DK can become better than DK by just grabbing Earthen Heart and ignoring the rest. So if the sustain passive gets moved to Draconic Might, Earthen Heart becomes less attractive to nonDKs as a result, nerfing their overperforming builds.
With subclassing ZOS went from having to balance 7 classes against each other to having to balance 21 individual skill lines against each other. It didn't used to matter if Ardent Flame was more powerful than Draconic Might since all that really mattered was how powerful DK was as a whole. Now it does matter and the only fix to that is either punish players for subclassing (by lowering values when subclassing), introduce more restrictions to subclassing (only 1 new skill line per character) or by doing what they are doing right now, breaking the skill lines apart and spread out the power more evenly between them, even if that goes against what ZOS has been trying to do for years.
They tried to do their usual approach with Sorc when they wanted to take away Major Resolve but then had to capitulate because their new system has too many moving parts. Either Stamsorc or Sorc tank losing their only source of Major Resolve for example, forcing them to subclass when ZOS intially said that they wouldn't do that or how subclassing won't be leading to blanket nerfs.

This is exactly why so many people (myself included) were against subclassing or told them to push back the update, because we saw the writing on the walls. Now subclassing is here and it is likely here to stay. These are the consequences.

Your comments are the equivalent of ESO victim blaming.

Dragonknight has gotten plundered by design again and again. There have been so many nerfs and changes to fun things that it could do. Now, because of peoples whining about what amounts to synergies between mostly other class skill lines, the fundamental play style that has existed for decade, AKA the identity of the Dragonknight which even survived subclassing, is getting nuked.

I didn't know that the solution to subclassing woes was beatings. God make the beatings stop. If subclassing is poison, this great leap backward of a class "refresh" is doubling up the dose.

ArchMunky · January 14

ZOS, please give us a way to tone down the new flashy skills. I tried the DragonKnight on PTS and I won't be able to play that class because it triggers migraines. This is a very important accessibility issue; please don't chase people with photosensitivity away.

BlackKnight556 · January 15

I like most of the changes so far, but there are animation issues when using abilities that show dragon wings, and the sound design is flawed, making many of the ability activations sound like water magic or something.

irstarkey57 · January 15

If this goes live, you will need another Dragonknight rework reveal the day after.

ZhuJiuyin · January 15

Although I already provided feedback in the PTS, I feel compelled to reiterate this here out of concern: World in Ruin should remove one of its AoE or DoT damage buffs. Don't forget how insanely powerful Necromancer passive made Arc's Laser was in the early days of the U46 test server.
World in Ruin can remove the AoE damage buff and replace it with an additional 5/10% critical damage or 1500/3000 penetration for the DK. The benefit of this is to prevent hybrid builds from stacking too many unnamed buffs when other classes are reworked in the future. And since critical damage and penetration have caps, there's less concern about excessive stacking leading to uncontrolled power.

SolarRune · January 15

I know i have said similar before, but i've just caught up on this thread. I hope the devs/combat team/powers that be review this from a tank/healer perspective (for DK predominantly tank perspective), there is some fairly consistent feedback from those that play those roles in this thread about how these changes have a larger negative impact those roles.

I know the focus has been on DD power and to try and make pure class perform closer to subclassing builds, but this shouldn't be to the determent of other roles in the game or even potentially negate subclassing in other roles in the game.

I play all three roles but the groups I lead tend to be missing a tank or healer so I end up performing these roles more often than not. I can see the benefit of the changes from a DD perspective, but as others have fed back this is definetly at the cost of some pretty core tanking capabilities. I am now very nervous because it seems solely focused on the DD aspect and not really taking other roles into account.

#edited because posting by phone was a stupid idea!

guarstompemoji · January 17

The tank pop in ESO is fairly small, and many of them tired. For this reason, their voices will be more quiet/smaller than DPS.

From the tanks who are around, I've heard regret over the stone fist changes, and the sustain changes (esp as relates to the shield).

For the longest time, DK tank was seen as the golden standard for tanks, and the one to begin your career with. I'd like to suggest listening to these voices, as DK has always played an important role in this area.

Personofsecrets · January 17

guarstompemoji wrote: »

The tank pop in ESO is fairly small, and many of them tired. For this reason, their voices will be more quiet/smaller than DPS.

From the tanks who are around, I've heard regret over the stone fist changes, and the sustain changes (esp as relates to the shield).

For the longest time, DK tank was seen as the golden standard for tanks, and the one to begin your career with. I'd like to suggest listening to these voices, as DK has always played an important role in this area.

Unfortunately, "fixing" the issue of sub-classing means demolishing the long-time standard of DK tanking, a core part of the DK identity, due to the designers greed over the past couple of years.

I personally do not agree with complaints about homgenization or sub-classing, but let's evaluate what has actually happened over the past couple of years.

- Designers introduced scribing which helped homogenize the game
- Designers introduced the extremly pushed class of arcanist which helped homogeniz the game
- Designers introduced sub-classing which helped homogenize the game

Again, I don't actually have an issue with homenization overall, but I think that it is valid to say that homogenization has happened. The reason for this happening being due to designer greed is since desperate change to the game which introduces huge balance issues often serves as a short term interest driver at the expense of a games long-term health.

Now, because of the designers past choices and resulting complaints, they will spice things up™ as they slice and dice skill lines and add in a dash of half-baked animations for margenilized players to stew in . And I do not trust the people who sold us the poison to sell us the cure. The bitter truth of this unsweet end is that changing the DK as planned does not serve to address past wrongs, but rather it reduces down to seasons of non-content to consume while maintaining the status quo that is the parasocial relationship of game designers deciding what players do and how they do it. Bon appétit. Au revoir.

AvalonRanger · January 17

I didn't feel any of dissatisfaction against DK. Even it's a only flawless class for me.
So, my DK tank is pure class build.

I don't understand why ZOS try to do nonsense again.

Leivendil · January 18

I'm excited for the class changes, and also for ZOS adjusting those changes after player feedback. I feel like DK still needs a bit of power to the passives to compete with arc or nightblade skill lines. Hope it will see some more buffs. I recently came across a feedback vid with some interesting ideas from Creative Excuses Gaming and agree with many points. DK changes are great, but need some improvement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl5Dtg-CrJ0

SnakeCrasher · January 18

I checked out the updated DK and two-handed weapon animations on the PTS, and they're fantastic. The DK animations are simply stunning, and I've been waiting for this rework for over nine years, and it's finally here. Unfortunately, I can't say anything definitive about the changes to the skills and passives themselves at this point because they require extensive testing, which I can't do right now. But off the top of my head, I see a lot of positive changes, and I hope the developers continue to do their best. The DK is my favorite class, and getting back to its updated animations, I want to say that they look and feel incredibly nice. I'm thrilled! They just need to fix the wing animation bug. I'll also mention the two-handed weapon animations—they're also stunning.
[snip]
[edited for baiting]

Radiate77 · January 18

SnakeCrasher wrote: »

I checked out the updated DK and two-handed weapon animations on the PTS, and they're fantastic. The DK animations are simply stunning, and I've been waiting for this rework for over nine years, and it's finally here. Unfortunately, I can't say anything definitive about the changes to the skills and passives themselves at this point because they require extensive testing, which I can't do right now. But off the top of my head, I see a lot of positive changes, and I hope the developers continue to do their best. The DK is my favorite class, and getting back to its updated animations, I want to say that they look and feel incredibly nice. I'm thrilled! They just need to fix the wing animation bug. I'll also mention the two-handed weapon animations—they're also stunning.
[snip]

Preach, brother. 🐉
I can not wait for the Necromancer rework.
[edited to remove quote]