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 · 12:15AM

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 · 2:32AM

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 · 9:30AM

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 · 10:00AM

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 · 1:15PM

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.