[PvP] From "Dragonknight Rework" to DK Nerfs... What Happened?

Decimus · 2:31AM

Molten Whip: This morph now grants 5% damage done against monsters per stack, rather than 85-100 Weapon and Spell Damage. This effect only activates if you are a Dragonknight. Seething Fury no longer generates stacks if you have Engulfing Dragonfire slotted on either bar.
Developer Comment: We’re intentionally inflating some of the damage of the Dragonknight class in the short term to help the class stand up to snuff with other current meta options, while we find more long-term solutions and continue work on other class refreshes. Expect these values/effects to be adjusted over time!

So we're losing almost a full 5p set worth of damage/healing stats in PvP... for what reason? The developer comment seems to only consider PvE, overlooking how this skill is utilized in PvP entirely.

Corrosive Armor: Reduced the damage limit to 12% of your Max Health, rather than 8%, to better account for the raw offensive power this Ultimate provides. The damage over time effect now only targets monsters, rather than any enemy, to offer healthier PvP balance.
Developer Comment: We’re better differentiating some of the buffs made to this ultimate from PTS 1 in efforts to help still reach our goals of making the ability more effective in PvE, while toning down how much impact it brings in PvP by reducing the defensive capabilities further and removing the high damage over time.

Let's see how this affects a typical PvP fight in open world or battlegrounds:
Live

30k Health Build, pop Corrosive Armor and engage with your ultimate that is supposed to give you an offensive window by actually reducing incoming damage. Damage taken reduced to 3% of Maximum Health.
Get CC'd by X.
Get hit by random Nightblade, Light Attack (900 damage), Surprise Attack (900 damage), Sundered Proc (900 damage)
Get hit by a random Crushing Shock from 28m away, take 3x 900 damage and another 3x 900 damage from status procs.
Get hit by a random arcanist beam from someone doing PvP for the first time on their full damage PvE parse setup. 3 ticks for 900 damage.
Take 9000 Damage total, less than 1/3rd of your health bar, you CC break and utilize that offensive window to get kills. Opponents have the counterplay of kiting, playing defensive, realizing you are in corrosive and waiting it out, same as right now on PTS.

Here's the problem... on PTS:

30k Health Build, pop Corrosive Armor and engage with your ultimate that is supposed to give you an offensive window by actually reducing incoming damage. Damage taken reduced to 12% of Maximum Health.
Get CC'd by X.
Get hit by random Nightblade, Light Attack (2000~ damage), Surprise Attack (3600 damage), Sundered Proc (1500~ damage)
Get hit by a random Crushing Shock from 28m away, take 3x 3600 damage and another 3x 1000~ damage from status procs.
Get hit by a random arcanist beam from someone doing PvP for the first time on their full damage PvE parse setup. 3 ticks for 3600 damage.
Take 31 700 Damage total, your health bar. You are now dead.

This renders the ultimate completely unusable in most cases and only really worth it in dueling or when running down some poor outnumbered player who can't fight back. Most damage in the game will deal full damage to you with the changes currently on PTS.

So we're in a situation where two of the most fun things about Dragonknight (Whip and Corrosive) are getting massive unwarranted PvP nerfs in a patch where supposedly the opposite was supposed to happen:

As we noted in our PTS Week 1 Summary, we know there’s a desire to see the power level for Dragonknight increased.

It'd be nice to hear a bit more of an explanation on why the developers thought these changes needed to happen and why the defensive aspect of Corrosive was targeted when it is something that no one really complained about.

Personally, this has massively dampened my enthusiasm for next patch. If anything, Dragonknight skill lines (outside of Ardent Flame) needed strong buffs overall to compete vs just slotting Aedric Spear, Storm Calling etc for better one shots in PvP and instead we're getting... nerfs?

Personofsecrets · 4:26AM

Yup!

I've been playing pure DK in PvP and don't even bother with Corrosive at this point. The tanky builds are still tanky and cheesy even with the penetration. The players doing tons of damage (multiple 9000 damage hits against me on death recap despite my using 40,000 resistance) already have the tools to cheese around once someone is in Corrosive.

Corrosive will be further relegated to the niche of being part of a group bomb that hits a synergy at the right time or maybe duels. It's sad that this cool ability is going from being the fun skill that it once was, with niche uses in multiple forms of content, to being more streamlined and homogenized into something that someone uses to cheese others once in a while when their proc set is up.

It's really something that this "refresh" of this ultimate skill has been a nerf on top of the previous ultimate generation nerf. I'll really miss the days of the skill clutching capture the relic points. Even years ago one could take tons of damage and be at risk under magma. There are just way cheesier things to do now to not die that don't even rely on casting an ultimate!

React · 4:43AM

I'm happy the DOT portion of corrosive was removed, on the PTS it was doing absurd numbers. Something had to give for sure, and with the dot doing such silly "free" damage that felt like the lowest hanging fruit to me. That said, they probably didn't need to also raise the defensive cap even further. I think week one's 8% damage cap would be totally reasonable now given the DOT has been removed. 12% seems a bit overkill.

The whip definitely didn't need to lose the spell damage, but I think they're assuming that the damage loss in PVP from that change will be offset by the new 10% crit damage they added to blessing at the peak in those same notes. They're probably pretty close in value, but I think most PVP players would prefer the weapon damage as it is more widely useful than the crit damage. If they're choosing one or the other, I personally don't care either way.

Turtle_Bot · 5:31AM

Decimus wrote: »

Here's the problem... on PTS:
30k Health Build, pop Corrosive Armor and engage with your ultimate that is supposed to give you an offensive window by actually reducing incoming damage. Damage taken reduced to 12% of Maximum Health.

Get CC'd by X.

Get hit by random Nightblade, Light Attack (2000~ damage), Surprise Attack (3600 damage), Sundered Proc (1500~ damage)

Get hit by a random Crushing Shock from 28m away, take 3x 3600 damage and another 3x 1000~ damage from status procs.

Get hit by a random arcanist beam from someone doing PvP for the first time on their full damage PvE parse setup. 3 ticks for 3600 damage.

Take 31 700 Damage total, your health bar. You are now dead.

Genuine question here (and this may just be a BGs vs OW Cyro difference), but what build are you running where crushing shock on it's own (ignoring status procs, set procs, LAs, etc. that land at the same time) is dealing (actually dealing, not just tooltipping) 3x3600 damage against you?

That is borderline actual tooltip damage, crushing shock tooltips for ~3x4k damage at roughly 5.6k weapon/spell damage, as such, these being actual damage values received, should only be happening if you have literally zero resistances (even 10-15k resistances (which is still low for squishy builds with both breach debuffs inflicted on them) will reduce it to like 2-2.5k x3 which would be below the 8% threshold it was on week 1 PTS anyway).

Here's a full DPS setup using 3 meta DPS lines and 2 meta damage sets and crushing shock with nearly 6k spell damage barely gets over 4k per instance for it's tooltip and this is on the wiki builder that actually shows in the tooltips the damage increase that don't show up in the in-game tooltips such as crit chance, crit damage, pen, debuffs, etc.

The active buffs that are boosting Crushing Shock to the shown tooltip:
- 5.8k weapon/spell damage (including a 150 balorghs)
- 3! slotted damage champion points
- 3 infused spell damage jewelry
- Rallying Cry active no group members so full value
- Essence Thief proc'd
- Lightning staff 12% direct damage bonus
- Only thing missing is the continuous buff (+10% weapon/spell damage)
- Dark Elf race for weapon/spell damage instead of khajiit for crit damage (still hits 111% crit damage)
- Lover mundus for ~10k pen before balorghs/breach

Bar layout because the tooltip for crushing shock is hiding it:

Empty slots are contingency and heal soul

This is a giga squishy build with 24k resistances on the back bar (20k front bar) and only 1 single defensive champion point, yet it barely tooltips for 3x4k on Crushing Shock and that's the tooltip damage, not the actual damage done after applying battle spirit, player armor, percent mitigations, block, etc.

Even accounting for a crit on all 3 of crushing shocks damage instances, that is still a stretch to be hitting tooltip values through all the percent mitigation bonuses, armor, and other ways to mitigate damage that players have access to.

hoangdz · 6:38AM

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Here's the problem... on PTS:
30k Health Build, pop Corrosive Armor and engage with your ultimate that is supposed to give you an offensive window by actually reducing incoming damage. Damage taken reduced to 12% of Maximum Health.

Get CC'd by X.

Get hit by random Nightblade, Light Attack (2000~ damage), Surprise Attack (3600 damage), Sundered Proc (1500~ damage)

Get hit by a random Crushing Shock from 28m away, take 3x 3600 damage and another 3x 1000~ damage from status procs.

Get hit by a random arcanist beam from someone doing PvP for the first time on their full damage PvE parse setup. 3 ticks for 3600 damage.

Take 31 700 Damage total, your health bar. You are now dead.

Genuine question here (and this may just be a BGs vs OW Cyro difference), but what build are you running where crushing shock on it's own (ignoring status procs, set procs, LAs, etc. that land at the same time) is dealing (actually dealing, not just tooltipping) 3x3600 damage against you?

That is borderline actual tooltip damage, crushing shock tooltips for ~3x4k damage at roughly 5.6k weapon/spell damage, as such, these being actual damage values received, should only be happening if you have literally zero resistances (even 10-15k resistances (which is still low for squishy builds with both breach debuffs inflicted on them) will reduce it to like 2-2.5k x3 which would be below the 8% threshold it was on week 1 PTS anyway).

Here's a full DPS setup using 3 meta DPS lines and 2 meta damage sets and crushing shock with nearly 6k spell damage barely gets over 4k per instance for it's tooltip and this is on the wiki builder that actually shows in the tooltips the damage increase that don't show up in the in-game tooltips such as crit chance, crit damage, pen, debuffs, etc.

The active buffs that are boosting Crushing Shock to the shown tooltip:
- 5.8k weapon/spell damage (including a 150 balorghs)
- 3! slotted damage champion points
- 3 infused spell damage jewelry
- Rallying Cry active no group members so full value
- Essence Thief proc'd
- Lightning staff 12% direct damage bonus
- Only thing missing is the continuous buff (+10% weapon/spell damage)
- Dark Elf race for weapon/spell damage instead of khajiit for crit damage (still hits 111% crit damage)
- Lover mundus for ~10k pen before balorghs/breach

Bar layout because the tooltip for crushing shock is hiding it:

Empty slots are contingency and heal soul

This is a giga squishy build with 24k resistances on the back bar (20k front bar) and only 1 single defensive champion point, yet it barely tooltips for 3x4k on Crushing Shock and that's the tooltip damage, not the actual damage done after applying battle spirit, player armor, percent mitigations, block, etc.

Even accounting for a crit on all 3 of crushing shocks damage instances, that is still a stretch to be hitting tooltip values through all the percent mitigation bonuses, armor, and other ways to mitigate damage that players have access to.

He most likely was in a glass cannon dk build and got nuked, or he went against a glass cannon pulse ganker and got nuked.

hoangdz · 6:42AM

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Here's the problem... on PTS:
30k Health Build, pop Corrosive Armor and engage with your ultimate that is supposed to give you an offensive window by actually reducing incoming damage. Damage taken reduced to 12% of Maximum Health.

Get CC'd by X.

Get hit by random Nightblade, Light Attack (2000~ damage), Surprise Attack (3600 damage), Sundered Proc (1500~ damage)

Get hit by a random Crushing Shock from 28m away, take 3x 3600 damage and another 3x 1000~ damage from status procs.

Get hit by a random arcanist beam from someone doing PvP for the first time on their full damage PvE parse setup. 3 ticks for 3600 damage.

Take 31 700 Damage total, your health bar. You are now dead.

Genuine question here (and this may just be a BGs vs OW Cyro difference), but what build are you running where crushing shock on it's own (ignoring status procs, set procs, LAs, etc. that land at the same time) is dealing (actually dealing, not just tooltipping) 3x3600 damage against you?

That is borderline actual tooltip damage, crushing shock tooltips for ~3x4k damage at roughly 5.6k weapon/spell damage, as such, these being actual damage values received, should only be happening if you have literally zero resistances (even 10-15k resistances (which is still low for squishy builds with both breach debuffs inflicted on them) will reduce it to like 2-2.5k x3 which would be below the 8% threshold it was on week 1 PTS anyway).

Here's a full DPS setup using 3 meta DPS lines and 2 meta damage sets and crushing shock with nearly 6k spell damage barely gets over 4k per instance for it's tooltip and this is on the wiki builder that actually shows in the tooltips the damage increase that don't show up in the in-game tooltips such as crit chance, crit damage, pen, debuffs, etc.

The active buffs that are boosting Crushing Shock to the shown tooltip:
- 5.8k weapon/spell damage (including a 150 balorghs)
- 3! slotted damage champion points
- 3 infused spell damage jewelry
- Rallying Cry active no group members so full value
- Essence Thief proc'd
- Lightning staff 12% direct damage bonus
- Only thing missing is the continuous buff (+10% weapon/spell damage)
- Dark Elf race for weapon/spell damage instead of khajiit for crit damage (still hits 111% crit damage)
- Lover mundus for ~10k pen before balorghs/breach

Bar layout because the tooltip for crushing shock is hiding it:

Empty slots are contingency and heal soul

This is a giga squishy build with 24k resistances on the back bar (20k front bar) and only 1 single defensive champion point, yet it barely tooltips for 3x4k on Crushing Shock and that's the tooltip damage, not the actual damage done after applying battle spirit, player armor, percent mitigations, block, etc.

Even accounting for a crit on all 3 of crushing shocks damage instances, that is still a stretch to be hitting tooltip values through all the percent mitigation bonuses, armor, and other ways to mitigate damage that players have access to.

I have been hit by a 3x2k crit Crushing Shock on my tank build, but that was from a full damage ganker. Most Crushing Shock crits for 3x1.2k for me, which turns out to be about 3.6k total. That's a normal value for how much mitigation I'm running. So yea, I'm wondering myself how he's getting hit that hard.

tye77732145 · 7:38AM

hoangdz wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Here's the problem... on PTS:
30k Health Build, pop Corrosive Armor and engage with your ultimate that is supposed to give you an offensive window by actually reducing incoming damage. Damage taken reduced to 12% of Maximum Health.

Get CC'd by X.

Get hit by random Nightblade, Light Attack (2000~ damage), Surprise Attack (3600 damage), Sundered Proc (1500~ damage)

Get hit by a random Crushing Shock from 28m away, take 3x 3600 damage and another 3x 1000~ damage from status procs.

Get hit by a random arcanist beam from someone doing PvP for the first time on their full damage PvE parse setup. 3 ticks for 3600 damage.

Take 31 700 Damage total, your health bar. You are now dead.

Genuine question here (and this may just be a BGs vs OW Cyro difference), but what build are you running where crushing shock on it's own (ignoring status procs, set procs, LAs, etc. that land at the same time) is dealing (actually dealing, not just tooltipping) 3x3600 damage against you?

That is borderline actual tooltip damage, crushing shock tooltips for ~3x4k damage at roughly 5.6k weapon/spell damage, as such, these being actual damage values received, should only be happening if you have literally zero resistances (even 10-15k resistances (which is still low for squishy builds with both breach debuffs inflicted on them) will reduce it to like 2-2.5k x3 which would be below the 8% threshold it was on week 1 PTS anyway).

Here's a full DPS setup using 3 meta DPS lines and 2 meta damage sets and crushing shock with nearly 6k spell damage barely gets over 4k per instance for it's tooltip and this is on the wiki builder that actually shows in the tooltips the damage increase that don't show up in the in-game tooltips such as crit chance, crit damage, pen, debuffs, etc.

The active buffs that are boosting Crushing Shock to the shown tooltip:
- 5.8k weapon/spell damage (including a 150 balorghs)
- 3! slotted damage champion points
- 3 infused spell damage jewelry
- Rallying Cry active no group members so full value
- Essence Thief proc'd
- Lightning staff 12% direct damage bonus
- Only thing missing is the continuous buff (+10% weapon/spell damage)
- Dark Elf race for weapon/spell damage instead of khajiit for crit damage (still hits 111% crit damage)
- Lover mundus for ~10k pen before balorghs/breach

Bar layout because the tooltip for crushing shock is hiding it:

Empty slots are contingency and heal soul

This is a giga squishy build with 24k resistances on the back bar (20k front bar) and only 1 single defensive champion point, yet it barely tooltips for 3x4k on Crushing Shock and that's the tooltip damage, not the actual damage done after applying battle spirit, player armor, percent mitigations, block, etc.

Even accounting for a crit on all 3 of crushing shocks damage instances, that is still a stretch to be hitting tooltip values through all the percent mitigation bonuses, armor, and other ways to mitigate damage that players have access to.

I have been hit by a 3x2k crit Crushing Shock on my tank build, but that was from a full damage ganker. Most Crushing Shock crits for 3x1.2k for me, which turns out to be about 3.6k total. That's a normal value for how much mitigation I'm running. So yea, I'm wondering myself how he's getting hit that hard.

Defintely a pulse ganker, or a full crit damage incap with blood for blood easily. Worse part and likely he probably running 1-2 heavy at best, probably one reinforced and like 5 crit damage resist on the body.

Turtle_Bot · 11:09AM

hoangdz wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Here's the problem... on PTS:
30k Health Build, pop Corrosive Armor and engage with your ultimate that is supposed to give you an offensive window by actually reducing incoming damage. Damage taken reduced to 12% of Maximum Health.

Get CC'd by X.

Get hit by random Nightblade, Light Attack (2000~ damage), Surprise Attack (3600 damage), Sundered Proc (1500~ damage)

Get hit by a random Crushing Shock from 28m away, take 3x 3600 damage and another 3x 1000~ damage from status procs.

Get hit by a random arcanist beam from someone doing PvP for the first time on their full damage PvE parse setup. 3 ticks for 3600 damage.

Take 31 700 Damage total, your health bar. You are now dead.

Genuine question here (and this may just be a BGs vs OW Cyro difference), but what build are you running where crushing shock on it's own (ignoring status procs, set procs, LAs, etc. that land at the same time) is dealing (actually dealing, not just tooltipping) 3x3600 damage against you?

That is borderline actual tooltip damage, crushing shock tooltips for ~3x4k damage at roughly 5.6k weapon/spell damage, as such, these being actual damage values received, should only be happening if you have literally zero resistances (even 10-15k resistances (which is still low for squishy builds with both breach debuffs inflicted on them) will reduce it to like 2-2.5k x3 which would be below the 8% threshold it was on week 1 PTS anyway).

Here's a full DPS setup using 3 meta DPS lines and 2 meta damage sets and crushing shock with nearly 6k spell damage barely gets over 4k per instance for it's tooltip and this is on the wiki builder that actually shows in the tooltips the damage increase that don't show up in the in-game tooltips such as crit chance, crit damage, pen, debuffs, etc.

The active buffs that are boosting Crushing Shock to the shown tooltip:
- 5.8k weapon/spell damage (including a 150 balorghs)
- 3! slotted damage champion points
- 3 infused spell damage jewelry
- Rallying Cry active no group members so full value
- Essence Thief proc'd
- Lightning staff 12% direct damage bonus
- Only thing missing is the continuous buff (+10% weapon/spell damage)
- Dark Elf race for weapon/spell damage instead of khajiit for crit damage (still hits 111% crit damage)
- Lover mundus for ~10k pen before balorghs/breach

Bar layout because the tooltip for crushing shock is hiding it:

Empty slots are contingency and heal soul

This is a giga squishy build with 24k resistances on the back bar (20k front bar) and only 1 single defensive champion point, yet it barely tooltips for 3x4k on Crushing Shock and that's the tooltip damage, not the actual damage done after applying battle spirit, player armor, percent mitigations, block, etc.

Even accounting for a crit on all 3 of crushing shocks damage instances, that is still a stretch to be hitting tooltip values through all the percent mitigation bonuses, armor, and other ways to mitigate damage that players have access to.

He most likely was in a glass cannon dk build and got nuked, or he went against a glass cannon pulse ganker and got nuked.

The reason I'm curious about it is that I have ran uber glass cannon magDK in the past (literal 26k max health, when 30k was the norm, 64 points into mag, 6L/1M armor, bomb build loadout) and sure I would take damage, but it never felt squishy (even had 2 sweats full sweat-lording me outside Sej 2v1 and they couldn't kill me even though I wasn't using corrosive).

It's why I really do struggle to see how anyone can see those sorts of numbers against them, especially now where there's so much mitigation (armor and percent values) available that medium armor is the literal BiS weight for tanking due to the sustain, bonuses and cost reductions it gives for things tanks struggle with such as roll dodge and movement speed as well as the block bonuses and the free damage/crit to buff healing helps as well). The mitigation access is very relevant especially with champion points, hence why I asked straight up if it was simply a BG vs Cyro difference.

Decimus · 11:46AM

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Here's the problem... on PTS:
30k Health Build, pop Corrosive Armor and engage with your ultimate that is supposed to give you an offensive window by actually reducing incoming damage. Damage taken reduced to 12% of Maximum Health.

Get CC'd by X.

Get hit by random Nightblade, Light Attack (2000~ damage), Surprise Attack (3600 damage), Sundered Proc (1500~ damage)

Get hit by a random Crushing Shock from 28m away, take 3x 3600 damage and another 3x 1000~ damage from status procs.

Get hit by a random arcanist beam from someone doing PvP for the first time on their full damage PvE parse setup. 3 ticks for 3600 damage.

Take 31 700 Damage total, your health bar. You are now dead.

Genuine question here (and this may just be a BGs vs OW Cyro difference), but what build are you running where crushing shock on it's own (ignoring status procs, set procs, LAs, etc. that land at the same time) is dealing (actually dealing, not just tooltipping) 3x3600 damage against you?

That is borderline actual tooltip damage, crushing shock tooltips for ~3x4k damage at roughly 5.6k weapon/spell damage, as such, these being actual damage values received, should only be happening if you have literally zero resistances (even 10-15k resistances (which is still low for squishy builds with both breach debuffs inflicted on them) will reduce it to like 2-2.5k x3 which would be below the 8% threshold it was on week 1 PTS anyway).

Here's a full DPS setup using 3 meta DPS lines and 2 meta damage sets and crushing shock with nearly 6k spell damage barely gets over 4k per instance for it's tooltip and this is on the wiki builder that actually shows in the tooltips the damage increase that don't show up in the in-game tooltips such as crit chance, crit damage, pen, debuffs, etc.

The active buffs that are boosting Crushing Shock to the shown tooltip:
- 5.8k weapon/spell damage (including a 150 balorghs)
- 3! slotted damage champion points
- 3 infused spell damage jewelry
- Rallying Cry active no group members so full value
- Essence Thief proc'd
- Lightning staff 12% direct damage bonus
- Only thing missing is the continuous buff (+10% weapon/spell damage)
- Dark Elf race for weapon/spell damage instead of khajiit for crit damage (still hits 111% crit damage)
- Lover mundus for ~10k pen before balorghs/breach

Bar layout because the tooltip for crushing shock is hiding it:

Empty slots are contingency and heal soul

This is a giga squishy build with 24k resistances on the back bar (20k front bar) and only 1 single defensive champion point, yet it barely tooltips for 3x4k on Crushing Shock and that's the tooltip damage, not the actual damage done after applying battle spirit, player armor, percent mitigations, block, etc.

Even accounting for a crit on all 3 of crushing shocks damage instances, that is still a stretch to be hitting tooltip values through all the percent mitigation bonuses, armor, and other ways to mitigate damage that players have access to.

Just a crude example of what could happen (I even didn't include light attack or glyph etc there), but you can definitely take 11-12k from a normal spammable alone if a ganker crits on you.

You have 4k per hit on your tooltip, right? Deduct 50% (Battle Spirit), assume full pen on a typical Corro build that'd run 7 divines on Live and you're taking up to 4,5k per hit (2000+125% Crit Damage). Likely won't hit that hard, but just an example.

A little disclaimer that this isn't a real event that happened (well, the live server version probably has been, many times) - you cannot find multiple people to zerg you in IC on PTS... So I'm explaining with the numbers and a tangible scenario why the changes will ruin Corrosive as an ability for the content most people prefer when it comes to ESO's PvP (i.e. not dueling/1v1s).

xylena · 12:38PM

Decimus wrote: »

It'd be nice to hear a bit more of an explanation on why the developers thought these changes needed to happen and why the defensive aspect of Corrosive was targeted when it is something that no one really complained about.

Whip - you yourself acknowledged the potential for one shots (you said the charged up whip TT is comparable to spec bow) so while it's frustrating that they don't address the existing one shots, this seems appropriate for a future PvP standard of "no more instant deaths"

Corrosive - in practice the defensive component meant that opponents would stall the fight for 10 seconds or simply disengage. So in any real fight all Corrosive did was stall and reset, who cares about clowning on unaware opponents, you can do that with anything

I'm glad they're keeping PvP DK focused on pressure damage and off-balance skill shots, not Corrosive-Whip one shots. I'm also happy to see more "against monsters" being used, can't wait to see the NB rework where spec bow is now only "against monsters" xD

Decimus · 1:05PM

xylena wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

It'd be nice to hear a bit more of an explanation on why the developers thought these changes needed to happen and why the defensive aspect of Corrosive was targeted when it is something that no one really complained about.

Whip - you yourself acknowledged the potential for one shots (you said the charged up whip TT is comparable to spec bow) so while it's frustrating that they don't address the existing one shots, this seems appropriate for a future PvP standard of "no more instant deaths"

Corrosive - in practice the defensive component meant that opponents would stall the fight for 10 seconds or simply disengage. So in any real fight all Corrosive did was stall and reset, who cares about clowning on unaware opponents, you can do that with anything

I'm glad they're keeping PvP DK focused on pressure damage and off-balance skill shots, not Corrosive-Whip one shots. I'm also happy to see more "against monsters" being used, can't wait to see the NB rework where spec bow is now only "against monsters" xD

That's all cool and all, but as long as defensive power remains how it is, this won't be the patch of the dragonknight... It'll still be patch of assassination+animal/aedric and won't be any different from the last 6+ months of the worst meta this game has ever had.

Why would you go through the trouble of putting DoTs up on the target and pressuring if you can just pick the subclassing lines with biggest oogabooga damage and one shot whomever you're fighting? All while sitting comfortably in netch+rune permablock with infinite sustain.

Also Corrosive on a proper min-max'd build on Live allowed you the defense and damage to go after back line healers in BGs etc and just wipe the floor with them. Of course it took skill and knowledge to utilize correctly, hence why you probably have that opinion of it - very rare to see a good Corrosive DK.

This won't be doable next patch and my opinion as this game's top PvP theorycrafter (by results, 52.8 KDR & 75% WR) is that it will see zero use on good builds after it is made near useless defensively

Onslaught, subclass to Crescent or Incap, Leap... All vastly better options next patch on every build.

xylena · 2:01PM

Decimus wrote: »

This won't be doable next patch and my opinion as this game's top PvP theorycrafter (by results, 52.8 KDR & 75% WR) is that it will see zero use on good builds after it is made near useless defensively

Fine by me. PvP does not need "turtle for 10 seconds, disengage, or get one shotted" as a play pattern, that's all Corrosive has ever been, any good theorycrafter has plenty of other options to deal with mediocre back line BGs healers who don't pay attention to opponent buffs.

Onslaught is absolutely degenerate in PvP, like Acuity it allows you to run max crit damage builds with zero investment in crit chance, literally degenerating the game, but it's much stronger than Acuity because it's so easily controllable while also a much lower build investment.

As far as the current meta... maybe the new dev team would be willing to work with us on the one shot proc sets in the short term? https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/688006/please-remove-rushing-agony-and-null-arca-from-build-pvp/p1?new=1

The goal is a meta where it's worth putting up dots and pressuring on a pure DK. The last time I can remember a good balance of burst and pressure was, ironically the Malacath proc set meta in like 2021, before that the Morrowind melee bleed meta in like 2017.

Personofsecrets · 2:18PM

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

hoangdz wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Here's the problem... on PTS:
30k Health Build, pop Corrosive Armor and engage with your ultimate that is supposed to give you an offensive window by actually reducing incoming damage. Damage taken reduced to 12% of Maximum Health.

Get CC'd by X.

Get hit by random Nightblade, Light Attack (2000~ damage), Surprise Attack (3600 damage), Sundered Proc (1500~ damage)

Get hit by a random Crushing Shock from 28m away, take 3x 3600 damage and another 3x 1000~ damage from status procs.

Get hit by a random arcanist beam from someone doing PvP for the first time on their full damage PvE parse setup. 3 ticks for 3600 damage.

Take 31 700 Damage total, your health bar. You are now dead.

Genuine question here (and this may just be a BGs vs OW Cyro difference), but what build are you running where crushing shock on it's own (ignoring status procs, set procs, LAs, etc. that land at the same time) is dealing (actually dealing, not just tooltipping) 3x3600 damage against you?

That is borderline actual tooltip damage, crushing shock tooltips for ~3x4k damage at roughly 5.6k weapon/spell damage, as such, these being actual damage values received, should only be happening if you have literally zero resistances (even 10-15k resistances (which is still low for squishy builds with both breach debuffs inflicted on them) will reduce it to like 2-2.5k x3 which would be below the 8% threshold it was on week 1 PTS anyway).

Here's a full DPS setup using 3 meta DPS lines and 2 meta damage sets and crushing shock with nearly 6k spell damage barely gets over 4k per instance for it's tooltip and this is on the wiki builder that actually shows in the tooltips the damage increase that don't show up in the in-game tooltips such as crit chance, crit damage, pen, debuffs, etc.

The active buffs that are boosting Crushing Shock to the shown tooltip:
- 5.8k weapon/spell damage (including a 150 balorghs)
- 3! slotted damage champion points
- 3 infused spell damage jewelry
- Rallying Cry active no group members so full value
- Essence Thief proc'd
- Lightning staff 12% direct damage bonus
- Only thing missing is the continuous buff (+10% weapon/spell damage)
- Dark Elf race for weapon/spell damage instead of khajiit for crit damage (still hits 111% crit damage)
- Lover mundus for ~10k pen before balorghs/breach

Bar layout because the tooltip for crushing shock is hiding it:

Empty slots are contingency and heal soul

This is a giga squishy build with 24k resistances on the back bar (20k front bar) and only 1 single defensive champion point, yet it barely tooltips for 3x4k on Crushing Shock and that's the tooltip damage, not the actual damage done after applying battle spirit, player armor, percent mitigations, block, etc.

Even accounting for a crit on all 3 of crushing shocks damage instances, that is still a stretch to be hitting tooltip values through all the percent mitigation bonuses, armor, and other ways to mitigate damage that players have access to.

He most likely was in a glass cannon dk build and got nuked, or he went against a glass cannon pulse ganker and got nuked.

The reason I'm curious about it is that I have ran uber glass cannon magDK in the past (literal 26k max health, when 30k was the norm, 64 points into mag, 6L/1M armor, bomb build loadout) and sure I would take damage, but it never felt squishy (even had 2 sweats full sweat-lording me outside Sej 2v1 and they couldn't kill me even though I wasn't using corrosive).

It's why I really do struggle to see how anyone can see those sorts of numbers against them, especially now where there's so much mitigation (armor and percent values) available that medium armor is the literal BiS weight for tanking due to the sustain, bonuses and cost reductions it gives for things tanks struggle with such as roll dodge and movement speed as well as the block bonuses and the free damage/crit to buff healing helps as well). The mitigation access is very relevant especially with champion points, hence why I asked straight up if it was simply a BG vs Cyro difference.

I personally run 40,000 armor and getting blow away by players who aren't even ganking. There are builds that are way overtuned and instead of changing actual overpowered game pieces, the designers are picking DK apart when it hasn't even been contributing to toxic gameplay in a meaningful way and has worse tools compared to other classes.

Decimus · 2:26PM

xylena wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

This won't be doable next patch and my opinion as this game's top PvP theorycrafter (by results, 52.8 KDR & 75% WR) is that it will see zero use on good builds after it is made near useless defensively

Fine by me. PvP does not need "turtle for 10 seconds, disengage, or get one shotted" as a play pattern, that's all Corrosive has ever been, any good theorycrafter has plenty of other options to deal with mediocre back line BGs healers who don't pay attention to opponent buffs.

Onslaught is absolutely degenerate in PvP, like Acuity it allows you to run max crit damage builds with zero investment in crit chance, literally degenerating the game, but it's much stronger than Acuity because it's so easily controllable while also a much lower build investment.

As far as the current meta... maybe the new dev team would be willing to work with us on the one shot proc sets in the short term? https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/688006/please-remove-rushing-agony-and-null-arca-from-build-pvp/p1?new=1

The goal is a meta where it's worth putting up dots and pressuring on a pure DK. The last time I can remember a good balance of burst and pressure was, ironically the Malacath proc set meta in like 2021, before that the Morrowind melee bleed meta in like 2017.

You don't really have many options besides Corrosive to dive into a stacked enemy team, especially if your team is weaker - the way other builds play in those situations is that they just won't take the fight and wait for people to isolate themselves. Corrosive is/was a unique playstyle in that regard.

Nerfing DK burst damage only means that you have more people just doing it with bow procs instead and nerfing the defensive value of Corrosive means it's even more important to build around permablocking or kiting.

Also the focus on Onslaught is funny, because anything you can do with Onslaught on PTS you can do with an Incap on Live (or on PTS)... The meta builds also run zero procs, just Essence Thief & Rallying.

The only way to rein in the one shot crit damage meta and encourage pressure playstyles is to bring crit damage back to where it used to be before subclassing...

This can be done by adding Critical Resistance equivalent to the Critical Damage into passives of skill lines that are not utilized by the burst meta.

Let full damage oogabooga builds one shot each other and give other specs the option to survive them, without having to build like a troll tank with gear, attributes, traits etc.

That's how I envision it... And that's the world where Onslaught, Incap, Crescent (and yes, Corrosive... though it's much weaker offensively than Incap or Crescent on Live) etc etc are balanced damage wise.

xylena · 3:07PM

Decimus wrote: »

Also the focus on Onslaught is funny

The only way to rein in the one shot crit damage meta

I dislike Acuity the same way, you're right there are bigger problems, like Assassination, which I crusaded to nerf for months on end, maybe the new dev team can do something to it short term so we're not stuck with this crap for years waiting for the NB rework.

But I don't recall ever being "one shotted" by a bow or jav combo unless there were procs from Null Arca and/or Kjalnar to spike their burst from 25-30k to 40k+ and RoA is its own disaster. There is no defending an effective 40% damage buff from a 5pc proc set.

There are endless ways devs could address the crit damage problem. Your suggestion is to let me play an un-burstable pure dot DK? Sure, I'm fine with that

hoangdz · 3:27PM

Decimus wrote: »

This won't be doable next patch and my opinion as this game's top PvP theorycrafter (by results, 52.8 KDR & 75% WR) is that it will see zero use on good builds after it is made near useless defensively

Made me spit my drink out with this

MXVIIDREAM · 3:43PM

xylena wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Also the focus on Onslaught is funny

The only way to rein in the one shot crit damage meta

I dislike Acuity the same way, you're right there are bigger problems, like Assassination, which I crusaded to nerf for months on end, maybe the new dev team can do something to it short term so we're not stuck with this crap for years waiting for the NB rework.

But I don't recall ever being "one shotted" by a bow or jav combo unless there were procs from Null Arca and/or Kjalnar to spike their burst from 25-30k to 40k+ and RoA is its own disaster. There is no defending an effective 40% damage buff from a 5pc proc set.

There are endless ways devs could address the crit damage problem. Your suggestion is to let me play an un-burstable pure dot DK? Sure, I'm fine with that

I think every class that gets reworked should have a passive put in there for 300/600 crit would be nice

BardokRedSnow · 4:12PM

Wow, these changes are really bad. If this goes through, there really is no point in using corrosive at all and we'll all just stick to using spell wall instead or a subclassed ult on the back bar, anything but corrosive. The skill only lasts ten seconds, its not as crazy as warden's Northern Storm. No dot damage, weak damage mitigation, the only plus is the no pen required.

Personofsecrets · 4:28PM

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Wow, these changes are really bad. If this goes through, there really is no point in using corrosive at all and we'll all just stick to using spell wall instead or a subclassed ult on the back bar, anything but corrosive. The skill only lasts ten seconds, its not as crazy as warden's Northern Storm. No dot damage, weak damage mitigation, the only plus is the no pen required.

The no pen thing is funny too because it conflicts with game pieces that provide pen in strong and efficient ways. It's funny that an ultimate skill which should feel strong and cool get's this calculus behind it about exactly how much value is lost by having another source of pen.

Just DK things. Just the designers treating DK in a heavy handed way while other classes are running around doing nutso things.

Who else gets pure dysynergy and "nonbos" built right in to their classes identity? I doubt other classes will be treated this way moving forward.

Decimus · 4:35PM

If they wanted to focus more on DoTs on DK they could lean more towards DoT penetration with Corrosive, return the AoE damage (I would increase radius to 6 or 8m though) & set it back to 3% mitigation... just have it not buff Direct Damage at all.

Would be playable atleast (especially in BGs/Cyrodiil), unlike this proposed awful version we're getting.

The comparison above is pretty good, Northern Storm provides 10m radius unblockable AoE damage and 18% Damage Done modifier for 12 seconds (after a stacking period), Major Protection for yourself and allies within the area and allows for ultimate generation while it's active.

It's not even a close comparison, and Northern Storm isn't even that strong on Live compared to things like Crescent or Dawnbreaker, Tether, Negate, Pummeling Goliath etc for AoE situations, depending on build.

MashmalloMan · 4:42PM

Personofsecrets wrote: »

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Wow, these changes are really bad. If this goes through, there really is no point in using corrosive at all and we'll all just stick to using spell wall instead or a subclassed ult on the back bar, anything but corrosive. The skill only lasts ten seconds, its not as crazy as warden's Northern Storm. No dot damage, weak damage mitigation, the only plus is the no pen required.

Who else gets pure dysynergy and "nonbos" built right in to their classes identity? I doubt other classes will be treated this way moving forward.

Why do people keep acting like this isn't a new beginning for class balance as a whole, you can use the current context of the game for reference, but let's not pretend DK is the ugly step child when we don't even understand how other classes will change yet. I understand it may be frustrating to wait for the next 2 years, but honestly it's no different than the past 10, meta's shift, at least we can see a major overhaul instead of a random number change like years past.

I can only hope every other class gets the same level of polish from top to bottom DK is receiving. You may disagree with their balancing decisions, but there is a lot of good there, we can see the intent, and nothing about it is directly malicious just because you don't like your class getting weaker in 1 area or another. Let's stop playing the victim and provide meaningful feedback they can action upon or guess what, it will remain as is.

BardokRedSnow · 4:45PM

Everyone always makes that argument when DK is getting nerfed, but no class gets complaints more than DK when its buffed. Is very annoying.

Decimus · 4:45PM

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Wow, these changes are really bad. If this goes through, there really is no point in using corrosive at all and we'll all just stick to using spell wall instead or a subclassed ult on the back bar, anything but corrosive. The skill only lasts ten seconds, its not as crazy as warden's Northern Storm. No dot damage, weak damage mitigation, the only plus is the no pen required.

Who else gets pure dysynergy and "nonbos" built right in to their classes identity? I doubt other classes will be treated this way moving forward.

Why do people keep acting like this isn't a new beginning for class balance as a whole, you can use the current context of the game for reference, but let's not pretend DK is the ugly step child when we don't even understand how other classes will change yet. I understand it may be frustrating to wait for the next 2 years, but honestly it's no different than the past 10, meta's shift, at least we can see a major overhaul instead of a random number change like years past.

I can only hope every other class gets the same level of polish from top to bottom DK is receiving. You may disagree with their balancing decisions, but there is a lot of good there, we can see the intent, and nothing about it is directly malicious just because you don't like your class getting weaker in 1 area or another. Let's stop playing the victim and provide meaningful feedback they can action upon or guess what, it will remain as is.

None of that matters if the "balancing" means we keep the status quo and subclassing builds are still vastly outperforming a pure DK.

Basically we just get new visual effects and some new tools, but you'll never see those used because you're trolling or trying to be a special snowflake by playing anything not involving bow procs & Restoring Light or Storm Calling.

Personofsecrets · 4:59PM

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Wow, these changes are really bad. If this goes through, there really is no point in using corrosive at all and we'll all just stick to using spell wall instead or a subclassed ult on the back bar, anything but corrosive. The skill only lasts ten seconds, its not as crazy as warden's Northern Storm. No dot damage, weak damage mitigation, the only plus is the no pen required.

Who else gets pure dysynergy and "nonbos" built right in to their classes identity? I doubt other classes will be treated this way moving forward.

Why do people keep acting like this isn't a new beginning for class balance as a whole, you can use the current context of the game for reference, but let's not pretend DK is the ugly step child when we don't even understand how other classes will change yet. I understand it may be frustrating to wait for the next 2 years, but honestly it's no different than the past 10, meta's shift, at least we can see a major overhaul instead of a random number change like years past.

I can only hope every other class gets the same level of polish from top to bottom DK is receiving. You may disagree with their balancing decisions, but there is a lot of good there, we can see the intent, and nothing about it is directly malicious just because you don't like your class getting weaker in 1 area or another. Let's stop playing the victim and provide meaningful feedback they can action upon or guess what, it will remain as is.

I've looked at the DK skill changes and they do not constitute a new beginning. DK continously losing utility while other classes smack is the norm.

I shouldn't have to hope that other classes get treated like crap too just for the off-chance that DK has parity with them.

The design team is simply not good at balance and that is a big reason why there are these DK changes to begin with. And the changes, big surprise, miss the mark in many ways. Well, it's a surprise if one considers things to be a new beginning rather than a continuation of business as usual.