Addressing Dragonknight Power Level on U49 PTS

MXVIIDREAM · January 25

My genuine thoughts and a lot of what I’ve been seeing

Molten whip

needs to be reverted back to how it was weapon damage and spell damage 100 per stack 3 stacks include 3% damage done per stack to monsters keeps roughly the same damage done as before but I genuinely believe the stacking with breath should remain to at least give players the option to use this with breath or else I think people are going to subclass it and use arcanist anyway

avalance

Great great idea, sadly a little ineffective in combat bosses immune phases and just combat in general make this a little redundant I propose 2/3seconds to build stacks 4 seconds of no damage to lose them
Much better uptime for 90% of combat this alone could fix a lot of the underwhelming dk performance in most pve scenarios

blessings of the peak

Adding crit damage to this is a brilliant idea however for the sake of all roles I believe it should be crit damage and crit healing this benefits both support dps and tanks

I wouldn’t mind also seeing 300/600crit resistance rank 1 and 2 added into blessings of the peak, with PvP the way it is and how impen got the treatment it did a while ago I would like to see every class also now have crit resistance worked into them over the refreshes and I think this is the correct skill line to work it into
I think it would go a great way to slowing down some of this insane burst we have reached in PvP
I picked the numbers out of my own experience it’s roughly equal to the champion point tree cp aswel as 600 Crit Resistance ≈ ~9% reduction in incoming crit bonus damage so it seems a fair number to me

Including these changes I’m ecstatic if dk went live exactly as is including the additional pts Notes above

Appreciate you reading

BattleAxe · January 25

MXVIIDREAM wrote: »

BattleAxe wrote: »

As dks are very lacking in offensive penetration could disintegrating dragon breath instead either give an unnamed armor debuff or after activation boosts dks penetration by an amount say a percentage of the initial damage dealt on first target hit this would I believe increase the effectiveness for single target pure dk builds.

Are they ? I have 14k pen unbuffed they have access to major breach aswell and with the new changes addition minor breach has been added so idk that pen is a big issue b

Pve or PvP build? Also without gear dks have no inherent pen like most other classes have in their passives. In pve dks are sorely missing pen and have to trade off a lot to get to minimum pve numbers for trials. What I’m mainly pointing out dk builds are a bit more restrictive and for both pve and PvP get restricted in build freedom. I’m simply advocating for more build diversity.

MXVIIDREAM · January 25

BattleAxe wrote: »

MXVIIDREAM wrote: »

BattleAxe wrote: »

As dks are very lacking in offensive penetration could disintegrating dragon breath instead either give an unnamed armor debuff or after activation boosts dks penetration by an amount say a percentage of the initial damage dealt on first target hit this would I believe increase the effectiveness for single target pure dk builds.

Are they ? I have 14k pen unbuffed they have access to major breach aswell and with the new changes addition minor breach has been added so idk that pen is a big issue b

Pve or PvP build? Also without gear dks have no inherent pen like most other classes have in their passives. In pve dks are sorely missing pen and have to trade off a lot to get to minimum pve numbers for trials. What I’m mainly pointing out dk builds are a bit more restrictive and for both pve and PvP get restricted in build freedom. I’m simply advocating for more build diversity.

PvP for what I’m running but it’s only the 2 maces I have on with sharpened but they have both minor and major breach now as minor has been added to one of the dk skills

MashmalloMan · January 25

The Corrosive changes are very questionable, as someone else said, the ability met a pretty good balance once ult gen was disabled. Now, you keep walking back your initial changes from this PTS because in an effort to improve it for PVE, it became overpowered for PVP.

I think you've lost your grasp on why people supported the idea of abilities being balanced seperately between PVE and PVP. There is a right way and a wrong way to do it. The right way is to use Monster or Battlespirt modifiers to increase or decrease the potency of effects. The wrong way is to outright disable effects for 1 content type or another.

Leap knocking up in PVE, but back in PVP. Brilliant.

Corrosive ticks being buffed by 4x for PVE, awesome, but disabling it for PVP, terrible. Why not just keep the original tooltip for PVP, then add "deals 4x more damage to Monsters"? This is the type of balancing we want to see on our skills.

It's so perplexing because you acknowledge the identity crisis it originally had when it only buffed direct damage on a class that is all about dots, but now it disables the flame damage, and your ult gen. Dots, flame, and ults are core concepts of the DK class fantasy, Earthen Heart even includes an ult gen passive, so why do 2/3 of these effects not work? It just doesn't make any sense, you need to go back to the drawing board and work on how you balance abilities in a fun and interesting way.

Also, if we're saying Earthen Heart now gives Crit Damage, then wouldn't it make more sense for Corrosive to give you 100% Crit Chance instead of 100% Penetration? If you're trying to solve its power level for PVE, that would be a double whammy because Crit is way more useful than Pen. I'm not saying I actually want this.. but food for thought, one hand isn't speaking to the other. There is conflicting class design concepts from top to bottom that need to be better aligned.

The work you did on DK over months is quickly falling apart at the final hour. Losing 300 w/s damage for a PVE specific buff, instead of giving Draconic Power more oomph, or again, improving the w/s damage buff against monsters, but reducing it for PVP, is really hard to understand. We don't like this all or nothing approach.

MashmalloMan · January 25

BattleAxe wrote: »

MXVIIDREAM wrote: »

BattleAxe wrote: »

As dks are very lacking in offensive penetration could disintegrating dragon breath instead either give an unnamed armor debuff or after activation boosts dks penetration by an amount say a percentage of the initial damage dealt on first target hit this would I believe increase the effectiveness for single target pure dk builds.

Are they ? I have 14k pen unbuffed they have access to major breach aswell and with the new changes addition minor breach has been added so idk that pen is a big issue b

Pve or PvP build? Also without gear dks have no inherent pen like most other classes have in their passives. In pve dks are sorely missing pen and have to trade off a lot to get to minimum pve numbers for trials. What I’m mainly pointing out dk builds are a bit more restrictive and for both pve and PvP get restricted in build freedom. I’m simply advocating for more build diversity.

It's hard to compare when we're talking about the subclassing, pre-rework era of the game.

Herald of the Tome has been asbolutely busted since release, even before subclassing, because it not only has Penetration, but Crit Damage built in. Combo that with Assassination being the only DPS line with Crit Chance.. which also gives Crit Damage, and you have a massive recipe for disaster.

Before subclassing and hybridization, Light and Medium armor in addition to your class helped you meet the minimum required 3-5k pen and 10-20% crit damage. Now that's completely out of wack, you can get both minimums easily.

Does that mean DK needs to have a Penetration and Crit Damage passive? Well why shouldn't Warden get one too? Why not Sorc? Where exactly do we stop before every single class is giving themselves 3k pen, 10% crit damage, and 5% crit chance. What exactly is the point of class fantasy anymore when every class is good at everything, just doing it in a different colour?

Idk that all sounds terrible to me.

At some point you have to acknowledge the root of the issue, bandaids like your proposition aren't the answer, it's short sighted. I'm hoping they're aware of this issue, and going forward it's addressed. Say what you will, but the first few years were the best for PVE group diversity when Light, Med, and class choice meant something more. Hell you can't even play as a Khajiit anymore because Crit Damage is through the roof making their passive redundant when they were originally very competitive with Dark Elf.

The fact that DK got Crit Damage is very odd to me because it doesn't fit the class concepts, w/s damage that they just took from Whip would of made more sense. On the other hand, it does seem like it was added to help them with PVE and the minimums I spoke about, I'm hoping they implement a personal rule of no more than 1 out of 3 of those specific passives per class can exist at a time, named debuffs/buffs not included. That would bring back some much needed diversity.

Tyrobag · January 25

"Flame Lash: This morph now also grants 12% damage done to monsters for 30s after activating if you are a Dragonknight. "

What. The. Oblivion. Is. THAT??? Please do not give weird hard locked incentives to not subclass. You guys specifically said you wanted to simply make all skill lines worth having, that is NOT what this change is. This change locks an entire active ability to the base class, while also forcing everyone using the class to use that one ability. Not to mention having a BULT IN NERF if you have a certain other ability slotted. What happened to "Play the way you want"? If you go through with that insanity my approval of the refresh defiantly drops form 7/10 to 3/10. You had a pretty good thing going until now, PLEASE don't throw it away with something ridiculous like that.

Make the skill lines work well together to incentivize pure classing, don't punish people for subclassing.

MXVIIDREAM · January 25

Tyrobag wrote: »

"Flame Lash: This morph now also grants 12% damage done to monsters for 30s after activating if you are a Dragonknight. "

What. The. Oblivion. Is. THAT??? Please do not give weird hard locked incentives to not subclass. You guys specifically said you wanted to simply make all skill lines worth having, that is NOT what this change is. This change locks an entire active ability to the base class, while also forcing everyone using the class to use that one ability. Not to mention having a BULT IN NERF if you have a certain other ability slotted. What happened to "Play the way you want"? If you go through with that insanity my approval of the refresh defiantly drops form 7/10 to 3/10. You had a pretty good thing going until now, PLEASE don't throw it away with something ridiculous like that.

Make the skill lines work well together to incentivize pure classing, don't punish people for subclassing.

110% all they had to do is keep the weapon and spell damage on whip stacks that’s mandatory if they was going to try introduce pve elements to it further it could have been 2% damage done to monsters and leave it effecting dragonfire as is
Unfortunately all they’ve done is potentially push people into running arcanist beam along with these “new stacks” genuinely hope they revert that they’ve so close to having it right it was painful

Radiate77 · January 25

Tyrobag wrote: »

"Flame Lash: This morph now also grants 12% damage done to monsters for 30s after activating if you are a Dragonknight. "

What. The. Oblivion. Is. THAT??? Please do not give weird hard locked incentives to not subclass. You guys specifically said you wanted to simply make all skill lines worth having, that is NOT what this change is. This change locks an entire active ability to the base class, while also forcing everyone using the class to use that one ability. Not to mention having a BULT IN NERF if you have a certain other ability slotted. What happened to "Play the way you want"? If you go through with that insanity my approval of the refresh defiantly drops form 7/10 to 3/10. You had a pretty good thing going until now, PLEASE don't throw it away with something ridiculous like that.

Make the skill lines work well together to incentivize pure classing, don't punish people for subclassing.

This was exactly what I warned them about multiple times when moving forward with these Class Reworks.

Insinuated Class synergy. Not being told to use specific skill lines or classes by abilities and passives, but being rewarded through intelligent game design for using lines that work well together.

HalfDragoness · January 25

MXVIIDREAM wrote: »

From my understanding, the goal of this update was to increase class power, but this change feels like the opposite. Replacing the Weapon and Spell Damage bonus with a 5% damage done to monsters per stack is effectively a significant nerf to Molten Whip, especially in PvP. While I can see how this may result in a gain for PvE although we now lose 300 wd/sd on everything which includes heals, in a PvP context it’s a clear loss of power and flexibility, and that’s disappointing to see.

It feels like we’re moving back toward PvE-only scaling rather than improving the core strength of the skill across all content. I genuinely thought the direction here was to modernise and elevate Dragonknight performance, not narrow it.

If I’m misunderstanding the intent or missing something in the numbers, I’m more than happy to be corrected. That said, a much better solution would have been to add the PvE monster damage bonus alongside the existing Weapon and Spell Damage, rather than replacing it. That approach would have improved PvE without gutting the skill’s value in PvP, and would have been a far better experience for everyone.

Right now, this just feels like a step in the wrong direction, which is a shame given the otherwise positive direction of the refresh.

Otherwise the changes are very good just this one that’s confused me

I like the damage increase to corrosive and that depending on how it performs could be increased more personally but will see how it plays out

I agree with this, as even though I mainly play PvE I liked building the extra weapon and spell power in combat. It's not too dissimilar to generating crux on the arcanist it just has no visuals.

Solariken · 12:25AM

Regarding all abilities/effects/sets that are "monsters only" -

It's super goofy and immersion-breaking for me, not to mention lazy design.

BattleAxe · 1:59AM

MXVIIDREAM wrote: »

BattleAxe wrote: »

MXVIIDREAM wrote: »

BattleAxe wrote: »

As dks are very lacking in offensive penetration could disintegrating dragon breath instead either give an unnamed armor debuff or after activation boosts dks penetration by an amount say a percentage of the initial damage dealt on first target hit this would I believe increase the effectiveness for single target pure dk builds.

Are they ? I have 14k pen unbuffed they have access to major breach aswell and with the new changes addition minor breach has been added so idk that pen is a big issue b

Pve or PvP build? Also without gear dks have no inherent pen like most other classes have in their passives. In pve dks are sorely missing pen and have to trade off a lot to get to minimum pve numbers for trials. What I’m mainly pointing out dk builds are a bit more restrictive and for both pve and PvP get restricted in build freedom. I’m simply advocating for more build diversity.

PvP for what I’m running but it’s only the 2 maces I have on with sharpened but they have both minor and major breach now as minor has been added to one of the dk skills

Do u recall which skill I’m not seeing minor breach on any of the skills. While in group content major and minor are provided by tank using puncture to taunt. What I’m mainly referring is dks have no inherent pen from class passives. In pve the minimum pen a build should have is about 7k apart from light armor passives and sharpened trait dks primarily stam dks won’t hit the 7k while also trying to build for crit chance/dmg. While classes like necro and Arcanist have pen from class passives. The issue I’m bringing up is competitively for a slot as dps in trials dks may miss a slot due to not reaching 7k. Now I understand there are major differences between building a character for pve Content versus building for PvP. All I mean is to make dk competitive with subclassed builds perhaps adding some type of passive bonus to pen or crit chance would open some build freedom for a dragonknight. If the concern is it might make dk overpowered for PvP we already see the devs can tie the added pen to not work while battlespirit is active same for other passives that may add to dks being too strong in PvP. Or as I have suggest somewhere in these forums instead of major breach on disintegrating make it an unnamed armor debuff which would not only help dk dd but also could be used by dk healer or tank.

Personofsecrets · 2:28AM

What is being done to DK is quite possibly the worst game design that I've ever experienced.

ArchMikem · 2:45AM

Below is an early look at the upcoming adjustments for DK:

Ardent Flame
Lava Whip: This ability and the Flame Lash morph now generate 5 stacks of their empowered forms for 20 seconds, rather than enabling the ability to cast the ability as many times as you can within 7.9s (at most, 7 casts). Increased the damage by 40% to account for less casts. Overall, this should make both versions of the ability much easier to use in a rotation, rather than feeling like you must choose between uptime of other abilities and the super sick flip whip. 
Flame Lash: This morph now also grants 12% damage done to monsters for 30s after activating if you are a Dragonknight. 
In a future PTS update this will be increased to 15% for 45s but only if all stacks are consumed – to help avoid turning it into a passive buff effect and more of a reward for using the ability to its maximum effect. 

I, don't know how to interpret this? My Dragonknight build completely relies on setting enemies Off Balance so I can use the Power Lash form of Flame Lash, but this sounds like the change is taking away a lot of the ability's up time? Does targeting Off Balance enemies even still change the ability to Power Lash?

tomofhyrule · 2:54AM

ArchMikem wrote: »

Below is an early look at the upcoming adjustments for DK:

Ardent Flame
Lava Whip: This ability and the Flame Lash morph now generate 5 stacks of their empowered forms for 20 seconds, rather than enabling the ability to cast the ability as many times as you can within 7.9s (at most, 7 casts). Increased the damage by 40% to account for less casts. Overall, this should make both versions of the ability much easier to use in a rotation, rather than feeling like you must choose between uptime of other abilities and the super sick flip whip. 
Flame Lash: This morph now also grants 12% damage done to monsters for 30s after activating if you are a Dragonknight. 
In a future PTS update this will be increased to 15% for 45s but only if all stacks are consumed – to help avoid turning it into a passive buff effect and more of a reward for using the ability to its maximum effect. 

I, don't know how to interpret this? My Dragonknight build completely relies on setting enemies Off Balance so I can use the Power Lash form of Flame Lash, but this sounds like the change is taking away a lot of the ability's up time? Does targeting Off Balance enemies even still change the ability to Power Lash?

My read on this is that yes, Off Balance still procs Power Lash.

The change is that with the current setup, one attack on an Off Balance enemy will have you powered up for 8 seconds, so you need to drop everything and just spam Power Lash 7 times in a row before the proc wears off, which means if your DoTs run out, you have to choose between getting them back up or getting the maximum use of your Power Lash (and if you get stunned or something, you lose your window entirely). The new one will give you 5 Power Lashes that no longer have a time limit, so you can reup DoTs or get staggered or whatever without losing 5 guaranteed hits.