PTS Update 49 - Feedback Thread for Combat Refresh: Dragonknight

Tannus15 · January 20

Tyrobag wrote: »

Passives:
For the most part I do like that the passives seem to be more balanced out, however I think Avalanche is the elephant in the room here. You guys really talked up this passive, like it was going to be central to what makes a DK a DK, but its really not good at all. It takes almost a full minute to get up to speed, then falls off pretty much as soon as a boss has a phase where you aren't dealing damage. I think something with a faster charge up and less falloff would be better, even if the % goes down a little.

Bang on with Avalanche, however I'd also argue it's too weak with a max of 10% damage done. Or at least, as the only dps passive in that skill line, it's not enough.

Look at it this way, if they added +10% crit damage would people be looking at the earthen heart line and be saying "omg, this is too strong!".
I seriously doubt it.

Honestly what ZoS should be doing is pushing the class up until they are thinking "ok, that's a bit much" and then take one step back from there. If it needs nerfing as the other classes get reworked, fine, balance it more then, but leaving it in this very very average state isn't a win for anyone.

Radiate77 · January 20

Dragonknight DPS is definitely not in an “average state” come next patch, 150k is pretty high up there.

Tannus15 · January 20

Radiate77 wrote: »

Dragonknight DPS is definitely not in an “average state” come next patch, 150k is pretty high up there.

except it's only 150k+ if you're running the new flame beam. without flame beam DK dps is underwhelming. Which is insane.

The dev comment:

they have explicitly said "This morph won’t bring the same heat as either of those builds alone, but it should help take some pressure off constantly needing to press down the gas pedal" yet this is by far the highest dps for DK.
It's backwards.

DK dps using whip is far below where it should be, and DK dps with Engulfing Dragonfire is much higher than it should be. If the values were swapped, then I would be very happy with the new DK.

Fab_Lewis · January 20

I generally really like the changes to DK. A few key things I would like to see changed are:

Searing Strike: The shorter duration is fine, but as a few people have noted, the damage should either be increased or be changed to tick every one second
Take Flight: Love the changes to this ability. I have always really enjoyed using it for fun, so I am stoked to see if become a viable DPS skill. However, the knockback needs to be removed. I like that it applies a crowd control as it gives the ability a feeling of impact, but I think this should either be a stun or just knock enemies up (as with the Ferocious Leap morph).
Dark Talons: Dark Talons and its morphs need a significant damage buff, or to have the duration increased. At the moment, they aren't viable for a DPS build using Engulfing Dragonfire due to the four-second duration, and the damage isn't high enough to justify its position in a Whip build.
Standard of Might: I think that this skill being made more of a support skill is a miss. I think that Shifting Standard (which has always been a dead morph) should be buffed to act as a viable support ultimate, while the previous damage buff provided by Standard of Might should be restored. Even if the damage reduction of Standard of Might is removed in favour of the additional damage, I think this would be an improvement.
Penetration: A final note - as it stands, DK needs more penetration. A pure DK does not have a reliable way to reach the penetration cap without specific group support sets or by running Light Armour (something that will both hurt damage, and shoe-horn DKs into specific sets). My suggestion would be to add penetration to A Soul Ablaze. As it stands, this passive is lackluster and feels out of place in Ardent Flame. It would be good for it to apply penetration comparable to Herald of the Tomb. My suggestion (keeping to the "building damage" theme of DKs, and to improve the pure DK experience) is to have a penetration buff be applied each time a DK skill is cast up to a limit of say 4960, but with a 5-to-10 second timer before the stacks disappear (this is equivalent to four slotted Herald of the Tomb skills, to reward the need to be consistently casting DK skills compared to the passive buff of HoT).

All-in-all, I am very excited about the future of DKs, and excited to see what comes next!

Radiate77 · January 20

Tannus15 wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Dragonknight DPS is definitely not in an “average state” come next patch, 150k is pretty high up there.

except it's only 150k+ if you're running the new flame beam. without flame beam DK dps is underwhelming. Which is insane.

The dev comment:

they have explicitly said "This morph won’t bring the same heat as either of those builds alone, but it should help take some pressure off constantly needing to press down the gas pedal" yet this is by far the highest dps for DK.
It's backwards.

DK dps using whip is far below where it should be, and DK dps with Engulfing Dragonfire is much higher than it should be. If the values were swapped, then I would be very happy with the new DK.

As long as we are in agreement that 150k is a good stopping point, sure. They likely haven’t brought whip up because they don’t know how to do so without making Subclass builds even stronger.

Here’s to hoping they find the answer while still respecting everyone.

HalfDragoness · January 20

GuardianV wrote: »

I feel like this would have extremely negative consequences for Heavy Attack builds.

The better and simpler solution, IMO, is to have the Staves provide +elemental damage done to their respective elements.

That has the benefit of also making clear intuitive sense to the player.

I'm going to be honest, I didn't think properly before I posted but what I meant was: As long as the numbers support a fire staff being BiS for the MagDK I don't really mind how that's achieved.

ZhuJiuyin · January 20

Radiate77 wrote: »

As long as we are in agreement that 150k is a good stopping point, sure. They likely haven’t brought whip up because they don’t know how to do so without making Subclass builds even stronger.

Here’s to hoping they find the answer while still respecting everyone.

I actually think that for each reworked class, its two or three main skills (in New-DK, this is Dragonfire and Whip) should have a condition similar to The Storm Voice, meaning the more skills of the same class equipped, the stronger the skill becomes. Alternatively, it could be similar to the relationship between Dragonfire and Take Flight, where skill A must be cast to maximize the effectiveness of skill B. This should prevent subclass builds from becoming too powerful.

MXVIIDREAM · January 20

Shadesofkin wrote: »

The more I test, the more I’m convinced that Seething Fury needs to be more than just a whip mechanic, and that flame lash needs to process off Burning Status effects.

There needs to be a consistent temp class buff that affects all skills, seething fury would do it

If flame lash was active while burning was applied to a target it would be a lot better
Soul blaze could do with being 2/3% healing per Dragonknights skill slotted on each bar 3 on the front bar 2 on the back = 10-15% for example
stam return needs to go back to when casting any earthern heart ability that was a big shame to loose that

MXVIIDREAM · January 20

Tannus15 wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Dragonknight DPS is definitely not in an “average state” come next patch, 150k is pretty high up there.

except it's only 150k+ if you're running the new flame beam. without flame beam DK dps is underwhelming. Which is insane.

The dev comment:

they have explicitly said "This morph won’t bring the same heat as either of those builds alone, but it should help take some pressure off constantly needing to press down the gas pedal" yet this is by far the highest dps for DK.
It's backwards.

DK dps using whip is far below where it should be, and DK dps with Engulfing Dragonfire is much higher than it should be. If the values were swapped, then I would be very happy with the new DK.

I’ve got between 110-130k as average with whip different builds ect all with issues, not close to the 180k+ we are seeing subclasses

GloatingSwine · January 20

TBH one of the things they need to do is blanket cut every single AoE skill's tooltip damage by 20-25%.

AoE attacks should be noticeably behind single target attacks in terms of peak damage output.

And possibly change Tide-Born's effect from Direct Damage to Single Target Damage.

But they also need to recognise the context in which Molten Whip exists, which is on a DoT class which doesn't repeat its other skills regularly in between uses of whip. A more thematic part of the kit would be something that recognises and interacts with the ticking DoTs on the target. Like a bonus to damage of the skill and a lingering weapon/spell damage bonus for 15 seconds that scales with the number of DoTs you have on the target or the cumulative DoT damage it has taken over the last 3 seconds or something. (Like Backlash/Purifying Light saves up damage done over its duration and scales up its final hit based on it).

Red99 · January 20

The new petrify is almost useless in pvp now DK doesn't have a proper stun skill

BasP · January 20

Radiate77 wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Dragonknight DPS is definitely not in an “average state” come next patch, 150k is pretty high up there.

except it's only 150k+ if you're running the new flame beam. without flame beam DK dps is underwhelming. Which is insane.

The dev comment:

they have explicitly said "This morph won’t bring the same heat as either of those builds alone, but it should help take some pressure off constantly needing to press down the gas pedal" yet this is by far the highest dps for DK.
It's backwards.

DK dps using whip is far below where it should be, and DK dps with Engulfing Dragonfire is much higher than it should be. If the values were swapped, then I would be very happy with the new DK.

As long as we are in agreement that 150k is a good stopping point, sure. They likely haven’t brought whip up because they don’t know how to do so without making Subclass builds even stronger.

Here’s to hoping they find the answer while still respecting everyone.

But why should 150K be the stopping point? Players have been used to builds that can do more than 170K DPS on a Trial Dummy ever since Subclassing was released. If everything would eventually be nerfed down to 150K after all of the reworks are done, I reckon it could cause more players to quit the game (because no one likes being nerfed).

Besides, multiple Subclass combinations can deal 170K+ DPS without a DK line at the moment. If the pure DK would be stuck at 150K DPS, it'd still be behind those combinations and probably wouldn't see much use (until all of the classes have been reworked anyways, which will take a long time). I mean, a pure Sorcerer can already do 150K DPS on the Live Server and when was the last time you saw a parse DD using a pure Sorc?

katorga · January 20

Radiate77 wrote: »

Dragonknight DPS is definitely not in an “average state” come next patch, 150k is pretty high up there.

I think every class "refresh" will get an arcanist beam for dps and cleave, notice on the DK they even made it direct damage to match (go reaving CP for unlimited healing).

(I'm kinda psyched to get a lightning beam for sorc that matches the flame beam for DK,

The crappy Necro tether would be cool to turn into a beam. )

Block casting RefreshDK will be the meta in pvp. otoh, it will be amusing if all the class refreshes get zeroed out with vengeance for PVP.

Radiate77 · January 20

BasP wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Dragonknight DPS is definitely not in an “average state” come next patch, 150k is pretty high up there.

except it's only 150k+ if you're running the new flame beam. without flame beam DK dps is underwhelming. Which is insane.

The dev comment:

they have explicitly said "This morph won’t bring the same heat as either of those builds alone, but it should help take some pressure off constantly needing to press down the gas pedal" yet this is by far the highest dps for DK.
It's backwards.

DK dps using whip is far below where it should be, and DK dps with Engulfing Dragonfire is much higher than it should be. If the values were swapped, then I would be very happy with the new DK.

As long as we are in agreement that 150k is a good stopping point, sure. They likely haven’t brought whip up because they don’t know how to do so without making Subclass builds even stronger.

Here’s to hoping they find the answer while still respecting everyone.

But why should 150K be the stopping point? Players have been used to builds that can do more than 170K DPS on a Trial Dummy ever since Subclassing was released. If everything would eventually be nerfed down to 150K after all of the reworks are done, I reckon it could cause more players to quit the game (because no one likes being nerfed).

Besides, multiple Subclass combinations can deal 170K+ DPS without a DK line at the moment. If the pure DK would be stuck at 150K DPS, it'd still be behind those combinations and probably wouldn't see much use (until all of the classes have been reworked anyways, which will take a long time). I mean, a pure Sorcerer can already do 150K DPS on the Live Server and when was the last time you saw a parse DD using a pure Sorc?

You have to cheat your parse with full Overload,, and Sorcerer has to go full single target to reach that value.

That is why you don’t see them.

Dragonknight is 150k with a huge focus on AoE, and no shenanigans. That is why it is comparable to modern builds, and as these refreshes roll out each class should meet Dragonknight at that 150k AoE benchmark.

If anything that benchmark could be lower. The less difference in power between builds, the more balanced they are, and 150k is still a very high value.

Aydh · January 20

Healer main. feedback based on that.
Generally, am very happy with this rework. The graphics look amazing, the skills are fun to use, and this revitalized my interest in playing a dk healer. Really like the inclusion of passives that benefit from more class skills and are not tied to specific trees. Hope to see more of this on other classes as we progress through the reworks.

Cauterize range reduction not thrilled with, reduced to 15 from 28. It seems ok, I've done a few dungeons on this and it worked as is. Little more range would be nice, but not deal breaker.
Fire Keeper - am in love.
Soul of Flame - if this goes live we don't need siphoning for sustain, love. Looks cool, works great, and feels good in rotation.
Standard of Might - support ult? really? YAY!!
Blood of the Elder Dragon - neat way to do both a heal and get minor courage w/o falling back to banner. This plus SPC means I can easily provide major and minor courage.
Volcanic Ward - Don't care for this, prefer the old one. The 6 sec delay between shield and heal is plenty of time for a dps to die. Would prefer this to either be a direct heal, have a much larger shield, or no delay. If this did a group might be something, but as a single target, its meh. Likely won't use this one, planning on healing soul instead.
Igneous weapons - can you clarify who gets the additional flame damage? is that everyone under the effect or just caster?
Fragmented Shield - like the duration, would prefer the shield to be larger, in the 8k range. Having major mending on this is nice. Functionally easier to use than Chakram, and has the mending buff, so I get the smaller size.
Mountain Giant - super nice passive for a healer, my heavy attack gives off-balance.

Overall, well done.

MXVIIDREAM · January 21

Aydh wrote: »

Healer main. feedback based on that.
Generally, am very happy with this rework. The graphics look amazing, the skills are fun to use, and this revitalized my interest in playing a dk healer. Really like the inclusion of passives that benefit from more class skills and are not tied to specific trees. Hope to see more of this on other classes as we progress through the reworks.
Cauterize range reduction not thrilled with, reduced to 15 from 28. It seems ok, I've done a few dungeons on this and it worked as is. Little more range would be nice, but not deal breaker.

Fire Keeper - am in love.

Soul of Flame - if this goes live we don't need siphoning for sustain, love. Looks cool, works great, and feels good in rotation.

Standard of Might - support ult? really? YAY!!

Blood of the Elder Dragon - neat way to do both a heal and get minor courage w/o falling back to banner. This plus SPC means I can easily provide major and minor courage.

Volcanic Ward - Don't care for this, prefer the old one. The 6 sec delay between shield and heal is plenty of time for a dps to die. Would prefer this to either be a direct heal, have a much larger shield, or no delay. If this did a group might be something, but as a single target, its meh. Likely won't use this one, planning on healing soul instead.

Igneous weapons - can you clarify who gets the additional flame damage? is that everyone under the effect or just caster?

Fragmented Shield - like the duration, would prefer the shield to be larger, in the 8k range. Having major mending on this is nice. Functionally easier to use than Chakram, and has the mending buff, so I get the smaller size.

Mountain Giant - super nice passive for a healer, my heavy attack gives off-balance.

Overall, well done.

Agree with all of your points except volcanic ward, I really like this skill for solo content the shield and headmaster is super nice to cast before the dragon breath otherwise you can get eaten up by damage real fast it could do with being a touch stronger in my opinion but I’d equally be happy if it goes live as is

ZhuJiuyin · January 21

Radiate77 wrote: »

You have to cheat your parse with full Overload,, and Sorcerer has to go full single target to reach that value.

That is why you don’t see them.

Dragonknight is 150k with a huge focus on AoE, and no shenanigans. That is why it is comparable to modern builds, and as these refreshes roll out each class should meet Dragonknight at that 150k AoE benchmark.

If anything that benchmark could be lower. The less difference in power between builds, the more balanced they are, and 150k is still a very high value.

You're absolutely right. I should also point out that many builds designed for HM Trials don't necessarily achieve 150K DPS. Besides some bosses requiring DPS to heal themselves due to their mechanics, many boss fights demand significant area-of-effect damage and movement. Therefore, builds solely focused on maximizing damage on a 21M training dummy are actually impractical in real-world combat.

In my experience, my team requires participants to achieve around 120K DPS on a 21M training dummy with a practical build, and we don't allow tricks like Highland Sentinel or Overload. Furthermore, area-of-effect damage must account for more than 60% of the total damage.

Currently, as far as I know, many HM Trials players are very satisfied with the New-DK. It has sufficient area-of-effect damage, its DPS in actual combat is very close to that of mainstream Arc-builds, and it performs better than Arc-builds in certain situations (e.g., the RGhm2 boss portal).

Jestir · January 21

After seeing it post bug fix i am incredibly happy with engulfing DK and hope it makes it to live without too much of a nerf with the 150k being the standard for mainly aoe builds going forward

But CPM DK still needs parts of the kit brought up to more "modern" levels. Subclassing builds currently push 175k+ and builds using warden lines built around the new mythic push 180k but even ignoring those it absolutely has to out damage the beam build on single target.

Something has to be done here and I am hoping that we can get something that leaves both builds in an endgame viable place

GloatingSwine · January 21

katorga wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Dragonknight DPS is definitely not in an “average state” come next patch, 150k is pretty high up there.

I think every class "refresh" will get an arcanist beam for dps and cleave, notice on the DK they even made it direct damage to match (go reaving CP for unlimited healing).

(I'm kinda psyched to get a lightning beam for sorc that matches the flame beam for DK, The crappy Necro tether would be cool to turn into a beam. )

Block casting RefreshDK will be the meta in pvp. otoh, it will be amusing if all the class refreshes get zeroed out with vengeance for PVP.

Can't wait for Warden to get Bug Beam. Beeeeeeees!

Snakewise · January 21

I'm not a numbers person, but just from the effects alone my personal opinion finds the rework a success. Makes me just want to skip subclassing and be a full Dragon Knight. Highlight: The channeled fire breath is so dang cool.

dhoward5b14_ESO · January 21

Overall I like the DK changes for pure DPS, with one glaring error in my mind.

I mostly just do trials these days, and refuse to play beam Arc because it is too slow and boring for me (and I am almost 70 years old). I am tired of (many) raid groups wanting beam builds. I like some decent APM for doing DPS, and I think using a higher APM class build should do more damage than a low APM build, especially if the low APM has a secondary benefit like AOE. On the PTS a content creator shows his builds with the beam version of DK doing 157k. and the whip/spam version 143k (he says he may get it to 150 when some animation / other quirks get fixed so let's call it 147k. This 10k difference for me is 20k backwards. I currently play DK sometimes but will likely not play the class if it stays this way - it just feels wrong.

You might also make whip an AOE to claw back some of the advantage of Engulfing Dragonfire.

The Avalanche buff is going to drop off in so many places (trials, including bosses) that it really needs to be changed. Simply buffing the damage would be too strong in many cases - I think the best thing to do is make it a static buff of some kind, could be penetration or crit done buff. Maybe better is flat 3% damage done per DK skill line. I cannot see how you could ever balance a stacking mechanic with such a long buildup, given the diversity of down times in content.

MXVIIDREAM · January 21

dhoward5b14_ESO wrote: »

Overall I like the DK changes for pure DPS, with one glaring error in my mind.

I mostly just do trials these days, and refuse to play beam Arc because it is too slow and boring for me (and I am almost 70 years old). I am tired of (many) raid groups wanting beam builds. I like some decent APM for doing DPS, and I think using a higher APM class build should do more damage than a low APM build, especially if the low APM has a secondary benefit like AOE. On the PTS a content creator shows his builds with the beam version of DK doing 157k. and the whip/spam version 143k (he says he may get it to 150 when some animation / other quirks get fixed so let's call it 147k. This 10k difference for me is 20k backwards. I currently play DK sometimes but will likely not play the class if it stays this way - it just feels wrong.

You might also make whip an AOE to claw back some of the advantage of Engulfing Dragonfire.

The Avalanche buff is going to drop off in so many places (trials, including bosses) that it really needs to be changed. Simply buffing the damage would be too strong in many cases - I think the best thing to do is make it a static buff of some kind, could be penetration or crit done buff. Maybe better is flat 3% damage done per DK skill line. I cannot see how you could ever balance a stacking mechanic with such a long buildup, given the diversity of down times in content.

I have the same concerns with avalanche and feel like 3seconds either way or even 2seconds to build 5 to fall off would be much better in terms of building this otherwise just as you get to max stacks bosses hit immunity and you loose them

HalfDragoness · 10:44AM

dhoward5b14_ESO wrote: »

The Avalanche buff is going to drop off in so many places (trials, including bosses) that it really needs to be changed. Simply buffing the damage would be too strong in many cases - I think the best thing to do is make it a static buff of some kind, could be penetration or crit done buff. Maybe better is flat 3% damage done per DK skill line. I cannot see how you could ever balance a stacking mechanic with such a long buildup, given the diversity of down times in content.

I agree with your thoughts about Avalanche timings. It doesn't seem like it'll be useful or managable in content where you're waiting for boss mechanics to play out. I want it to feel like this building power and a smoldering rage that builds the longer a fight goes on and takes a bit longer to cool down when the fight is done. Not something that will fade out in the middle of long combat that you have to build up again.

Personofsecrets · 12:02PM

Tannus15 wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Dragonknight DPS is definitely not in an “average state” come next patch, 150k is pretty high up there.

except it's only 150k+ if you're running the new flame beam. without flame beam DK dps is underwhelming. Which is insane.

The dev comment:

they have explicitly said "This morph won’t bring the same heat as either of those builds alone, but it should help take some pressure off constantly needing to press down the gas pedal" yet this is by far the highest dps for DK.
It's backwards.

DK dps using whip is far below where it should be, and DK dps with Engulfing Dragonfire is much higher than it should be. If the values were swapped, then I would be very happy with the new DK.

You will use the slop beam.

hoangdz · 12:20PM

The recovery function of Inhale needs to be adjusted for PvP. For a skill that is mainly used a delayed burst, it is currently outperforming other pure sustain skills such as Siphoning Attacks and Dark Deal. Here is a sample calculation of Inhale's recovery at difference % of current missing resources:

Inhale's base cost: 3500
Stamina recovery: 750
Magicka recovery: 550
Max stam: 30000
Max mag: 20000

At 100% mag and 100% stam: 20000 mag and 30000 stam

Missing mag after casting Inhale: 3500
Missing stam: 0
Resources restored after accounting for 1 recovery tick:

Mag: 525 + 364 + 309 = 1198
Stam: 0 since we're at full stam

At 90% mag and 90% stam: 18000 mag and 27000 stam

Missing mag after casting Inhale: 5500
Missing stam: 3000
Resources restored after accounting for 1 recovery tick:

Mag: 825 + 618 + 526 = 1969
Stam: 450 + 338 + 287 = 1075

At 80% mag and 80% stam: 16000 mag and 24000 stam

Missing mag after casting Inhale: 7500
Missing stam: 6000
Resources restored after accounting for 1 recovery tick:

Mag: 1125 + 872 + 741 = 2738
Stam: 900 + 713 + 606 = 2219

At 70% mag and 70% stam: 14000 mag and 21000 stam

Missing mag after casting Inhale: 9500
Missing stam: 9000
Resources restored after accounting for 1 recovery tick:

Mag: 1425 + 1127 + 957 = 3509
Stam: 1350 + 1088 + 925 = 3363

At 60% mag and 60% stam: 12000 mag and 18000 stam

Missing mag after casting Inhale: 11500
Missing stam: 12000
Resources restored after accounting for 1 recovery tick:

Mag: 1725 + 1382 + 1173 = 4280
Stam: 1800 + 1463 + 1244 = 4507

At 50% mag and 50% stam: 10000 mag and 15000 stam

Missing mag after casting Inhale: 13500
Missing stam: 15000
Resources restored after accounting for 1 recovery tick:

Mag: 2025 + 1637 + 1389 = 5051
Stam: 2250 + 1838 + 1563 = 5651

At 40% mag and 40% stam: 8000 mag and 12000 stam

Missing mag after casting Inhale: 15500
Missing stam: 18000
Resources restored after accounting for 1 recovery tick:

Mag: 2325 + 1892 + 1604 = 5821
Stam: 2700 + 2213 + 1882 = 6795

At 30% mag and 30% stam: 6000 mag and 9000 stam

Missing mag after casting Inhale: 17500
Missing stam: 21000
Resources restored after accounting for 1 recovery tick:

Mag: 2625 + 2147 + 1819 = 6179
Stam: 3150 + 2588 + 2201 = 7939

At 20% mag and 20% stam: 4000 mag and 6000 stam

Missing mag after casting Inhale: 19500
Missing stam: 24000
Resources restored after accounting for 1 recovery tick:

Mag: 2925 + 2402 + 2034 = 6179
Stam: 3600 + 2963 + 2520 = 9083

At minimum mag (3500) and 0% stam: 3500 mag and 0 stam

Missing mag after casting Inhale: 16500
Missing stam: 30000
Resources restored after accounting for 1 recovery tick:

Mag: 2475 + 2002 + 1702 = 6179
Stam: 4500 + 3713 + 3158 = 11371

You will break even with mag sustain when at 70% max mag. At 50% for both resources, you will net 1551 mag and 5651 stam over 4 seconds, which amounts to 775 mag recovery and 2825 stam recovery. At 30% for both resources, you will gain an equivalent of 1339 mag recovery and 3969 stam recovery over 4 seconds.

Dark Deal on the other hand, restores 3600 stam up front and another 2400 stam over 10s. When converted to recovery, that's a total of 2280 stam recovery. While one can argue that Dark Deal can be casted multiple times during the 4s window of Inhale, it should be noted that GCD efficiency is a hidden factor that cannot be undermined. Dark Deal is a channel and requires you to spend a GCD per cast, while Inhale only requires 1 initial cast.

Here is a sample 1v1 fight where I had removed several sustain passives from class lines. I also did not used any sustain potions or sustain sets. Not only that, but I did not heavy attack at all during the fight to demonstrate how overperforming Inhale is as a sustain ability:

https://youtu.be/kxSpBo0ncIY

Dreadwar · 1:58PM

Avalanche Passive:

FAR TOO LONG to ramp up to anything meaningful and drops off again FAR TOO QUICK. There needs to be some middle ground for both.

Olanero · 3:26PM

Hello everyone,
while I lack a full raid group to test stuff properly in a raid scenario, I want to give my thoughts on the impact of the dk changes on raiding.

The main goal was (at least as I understand it) to create a "pure" class that is similar in performance, compared to subclassing.

Adding Engulfing Dragonfire to the DK kit, is probably helping with making DK viable up to a certain level without a doubt. There is a reason, why Beam Arcanists dominate PvE content and this skill is the DK version of it.
I think that some people may dislike the fact, that this looks like - "we will just give everyone beam", but it is a pragmatic way of doing stuff. Just keep in mind, that this sentiment already exists, when heading into future class reworks.

While stuff is still being tested, I cannot know how well this will perform within a raid setting, however I want to share a few concerns that may come up.

1.) The DK skill lines do not offer any form of penetration or critical damage. In the current subclassing meta, dds bring at least 20% critical damage and ~2500 penetration (2 arcanist skills frontbar). It is possible to make up for that in case pure dk proves very powerful, by adding back old support sets. This would force more players into playing support sets. Based on what I read earlier, I think that is something best avoided and I agree with that. Tanks and Healers play Support Roles by choice (well to an amount), but that one dd who is playing support, he usually gets bullied into that role. When playing as a dd part of the fun is (imo) to compete with others. It should not be taken away, because more support sets are required.
This would also create a bigger gap between casual and more progress oriented groups, which apparently is not welcome (see the comments regarding respeccing during raids/trials)

2.) The impact of the changes for healers and tanks
I have the impression that healers and tanks have not been a priority during this rework. While healers never really used dragon knight skill lines in the first place and even got a new aoe healing ground effect, tanks did use dragon knight skill lines. And prior to that dragon knight was the most recommended tank class.

Healers:
The healing area of effect, while adding another option for gaining a heroism buff in raids, is probably not enough to start adding dk to a healer's kit. One of the main problems of having an important raid buff tied to an area of effect ground healing ablity, is that a) fights tend to get more mobile lately and b) there is a target cap of 6 players for healing skills, which will get inherited by the buffs on those healing abilities. This is a general issue in 12 man raids, that can make applying buffs a bit random/annoying. For those reasons, I think heroism wil keep being provided by banners or potions, especially since other buffs from banners have better replacement options. (I of course can be totally wrong here and the dk area proves to be amazing- numbers can always change something, this is just the inherent problem I see with it)

Tanks:
Earthen Heart is currently a skill line that is used by tanks in subclassing context.
Let us take a look at the changes to the passives.
We get:
- stamina when heavy attacking
- damage buff (not important for tanks)
- 2974 armor (that's nice- with sublassing not as imortant as before but still)

Gone:
- Magicka->Stamina conversion by casting abilities (THE special tanking feature of dks)
- Resource regeneration by casting ultimates (other skill line)
- class buff (other skill line)

So basically we get armor, and lose the class buff and the sustain. I do not consider that to be helpful.
This change will also remove Igneous Shield from tanks (imo), because the conversion from magicka to stamina, while shielding yourself will be gone. I do not consider that ability to be worthwhile, without this effect.
Losing the class buff, will also have some implications. If you are forced to use potions for weapon or spell damage (and weapon and spell crit) the missing presence of the dk class buff, will force you to go down the spell damage route to get the maximum amount of spell/weapon damage. That however, also forces magicka resource generation as well as spell critical route, which may also not be present in a raid setting, because the sorcerer line is not very good for raiding.
I'm aware, that there are changes planned regarding alchemy and those potions, but we might need those changes rather sooner than later, given that the dk changes are coming up now.

Regarding the skills from this line, I already mentioned my concerns regarding Igneous Shield. The changes to stagger will probably benefit most raiding groups, even though it will be a nerf at the top end. But that is in line with the design philosophy, so I guess that's alright.

To sum it up:
I think that this is not beneficial for tanks, and it might have a negative impact on raid groups.
I think some changes regarding sustain were made to balance damage dealing abilities. However, maybe the impact on tanks can be reviewed, because hurting sustain on tanks is something, that will widen the gap between beginners and advanced players, not narrow it down. Squeezing those heavy attacks in, requires knowledge of a certain encounter (or good reactions).

P.S.
Keep in mind that the rebalancing of subclassing with ultimate generation was done on the back of healers last time. Maybe give the support players a bit of love as well.

ZhuJiuyin · 3:57PM

Olanero wrote: »

This would force more players into playing support sets. Based on what I read earlier, I think that is something best avoided and I agree with that. Tanks and Healers play Support Roles by choice (well to an amount), but that one dd who is playing support, he usually gets bullied into that role. When playing as a dd part of the fun is (imo) to compete with others. It should not be taken away, because more support sets are required.
This would also create a bigger gap between casual and more progress oriented groups, which apparently is not welcome

A very insightful observation: my main class is Sorc, and before u46, in HM-Trials groups, I was most often asked to wear Way of Martial Knowledge + Roar of Alkosh, even though my DPS and skill were higher than others. Ironically, precisely because of my skill, I was more often required to do so, as supporting DPS often requires better control over buff timing and maintenance.

I believe the roles should be reversed. Skilled players should be prioritized for DPS to maximize output, while less skilled or new players should take on support roles to reduce their burden, as they are less familiar with skill rotations and mechanics. However, support sets like Elemental Catalyst, Way of Martial Knowledge, and The Morag Tong are very unfriendly to less skilled players, with buff durations too short or trigger conditions too demanding.

If there were more easily maintainable and triggerable support DPS sets, I think it would further increase the willingness of casual players to participate in Trials, as they could take on support DPS roles without worrying about insufficient DPS.