BananaBender wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

BananaBender wrote: »

I do wish they had made the damage buff more specialized than just a unique damage done boost to monsters, but I think class specific buffs are a great tool for the devs to incentivise class diversity (if done right).

Forest for the trees take, certainly.

You encourage class diversity by making all classes comparable, not by telling anyone who is playing a class other than Dragonknight to ignore Ardent Flame entirely.

When you isolate skill lines to certain classes, you eliminate diversity, not increase it.

As if whip and the buff is the only thing the entire skill line brings. For pure DPS output, yes it's weaker when you don't get the whip buff, but it's by far the strongest skill line for soloing stuff on PTS. If they fix the targetting on the heals it will be a good healer subclass and a tank one as well. I agree that they should look into making standard a more of a dps ult than a support one to make the skill line more attractive to subclass into, but I think the class unique buffs are not a bad thing at all, in fact I would love to see more of them.

I don’t think you understand how much of a PvP nerf that molten whip change is, the main point we are trying to address here is that change could have been 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 the skill isn’t now gutted for PvP aswell that’s what we are trying to say , bare in mind that weapon and spell damage helps your healing aswell in both Pve and PvP so I can’t stress enough its importance for the class

Making skills vastly different in PvP and PvE is unwise.

The New-DK was in excellent condition in v11.3.1 and only needed minor modifications to be released. However, I think the changes in 11.3.2 are a bit of an overreaction.

• Flame Lash & Molten Whip: Do we really need both morphs to have an "increased damage to monsters" buff? This only diminishes the difference between the two skills, negating the purpose of morphs. Why can't they each have different advantages in PvP and PvE?
  
  However, I don't object to conditions like "if you are a Dragonknight," as long as other class reworks have similar conditions. This would at least ensure we see more different main classes, each with its own unique characteristics and advantages. The characteristics of Main Arc + Assassination + Aedric Spear should be different from Main Templar + Herald of the Tome + Assassination, not just produce the same effect.

• Corrosive Armor: It's unwise to make skills vastly different in PvP and PvE. While set bonuses are fine, completely disabling the damage of a class skill, especially an ultimate skill, in PvP is extremely unwise. I think other suggestions are good, such as "reducing initial damage and increasing its damage against monsters" or "reducing damage dealt when affected by a Battle Spirit." Completely disabling it is really overreacting.

• Blessing at the Peak: It should have 10% Critical healing added, consistent with other similar passive abilities.

• Onslaught: Again, It's unwise to make skills vastly different in PvP and PvE. Onslaught's new restrictions are a bit of an overreaction. Completely removing Critical Chance in PvP only makes Onslaught seem like it's being deliberately discriminated against in PvP. There are obviously many more compromises, such as using Battle Sprites for balance, like "only 50% Critical Chance is gained when affected by a Battle Spirit."

U49 has done a good job most of the time, with most of the New-DK changes meeting player expectations and the communication being excellent. However, please do not overcorrect at the last minute and ruin everything.

BananaBender wrote: »

Except when other classes get a buff similar to the one on DK which gives and incentive to pick that class as your base class. Classes need to have unique strengths to give players a reason to play on multiple characters, like the game was before subclassing. Adding unique buffs to certain skills is one way of achieving this, reworking class masteries and class sets could be another one.

DK didnt get a buff, DKs using Ardent Flame and Whip got a buff. DKs are being punished for not using whip, anyone else who wants to use whip is being punished for not being a DK. Each skill line should have unique strengths, but those strengths should be equal and not relegated to just the base class.

BananaBender wrote: »

How would you go by making subclassing and pure classes equally strong?

Exactly as stated several times. If all skill lines are equal in power (or as close as is reasonable), then it doesn't matter if you are a pure class or a subclass build because everyone is on a level playing field.

BananaBender wrote: »

Subclassing allows for you to patch in the weaknesses from your builds. If you don't have AoE damage, you can simply slot in some AoE damage from another class. No execute? That's easily fixed with subclassing. How can you make sure pure class is on the same level to subclassing when the idea of subclassing is to improve your base class? The only way subclassing could be a "side-grade" is if all skill lines are a the exact same level in every single way, meaning they are identical.

Have you been paying attention to the stated goals for the class rework? It has been explicitly stated that their intention (until this moment apparently) is to ensure that each skill line functions as its own full kit. The point of subclassing is to allow people to experience their own power fantasy, "Play the way you want". Balancing three skill lines under the assumption that you are the base class using a specific skill from one of those lines severely restricts your options for a build. There are plenty of spammables in the game. If I want to use wield soul or elemental weapon, those should be just as much of an option as whip or fire breath. With this change, that is not the case.

BananaBender wrote: »

In this current state, whip is a really good spammable/semi-spammable with a really strong buff and the only one which requires you to be a specific class, but as I stated, assuming in the future every class gets a buff which incentivises a player to pick that class as their base class, how is this a bad thing? If DK ends up being the only class with a unique buff requiring you to be a base DK, I agree that would be stupid, because it's exactly what was the case with arcanist and the insanely strong class mastery and it sucked.

Its a bad thing because it forces DKs to keep Ardent Flame in order to maintain their unique 12% damage buff. If one skill line for each class is completely essential due to OP unique class locked buffs, not only will they be the only ones using the skill line, they HAVE to use the skill line, and the single skill to which the buff has been locked. What if I am a NB who wants to make a cool subclassed build, and a new NB exclusive 15% damage buff is added to grim focus? When I look at which skill lines to drop it wont even be a question. I'd have to give up Shadow and Siphoning. One of those lines may have fit what I wanted better, but the massive power difference forces me to keep Assassination. Then of course there are the other classes that may want to subclass into shadow, but wait: Shadow was balanced to NB assuming that you have that 15% buff from another skill line, so now its under powered. Making one skill line indespensible is not good game design (its how we ended up in this situation in the first place) and is most certainly not "Play the way you want".

BananaBender wrote: »

On PTS there is already twice as much build variety as there is on live. Ardent Flame + Earthen Heart + Assassination seems extremely strong, so does Animal Companions + Winter's Embrace + Herald and the old meta builds are still as strong as ever. I don't really see how the DK whip has destroyed build variety when as of right now we have twice the playable builds we had before.

There was up until this patch. Now DKs have to keep their powerhouse.

BananaBender wrote: »

If every class ends up with a unique buff, I don't see how that is going to hurt build variety in the slightest (assuming it's implemented properly). I'm going to make a hypothetical situation which hopefully demonstrates what I would like to see from the future of subclassing and the unique buffs.

Let's say you have a build with Ardent Flame + Winter's Embrace and Herald of the Tome, now you would get a flat dmg buff from being a base DK, very nice. If you were a base Warden with the same build, they might get a buff like "While Artic Blast is active your status effects deal 200% more damage" or something along those lines. Now you are incentivised build around status effects, making the build play completely differently. Arcanist on the other hand could have a buff which increases your AoE damage etc. With the same 3 subclasses you could end up with 3 builds which play completely differently from one another. Of course one build is going to be stronger is most situations, but the specialization of builds is what got killed by subclassing and that's what I hope will be brought back.
You no longer bring a templar in the group because you want more single target and execute damage, because every build already has those. Or necro for AoE, because again, everyone has everything.

Right, once again, you jumped over the fact that only one of your skill lines (and only one skill) gets this OP buff, thus requiring you to use that skill line and punishing you if you choose to drop it while keeping your other two. You also ignored the fact that ZoS could simply NOT have the class restriction and get the exact same result as what you've just suggested. Furthermore they can put the buffs in the passives and on each skill line rather than just one, resulting in everyone being able to play the way they want. No buffs stacked on a single skill, and neither pure classes or subclasses are inherently stronger.

BananaBender wrote: »

I do wish they had made the damage buff more specialized than just a unique damage done boost to monsters, but I think class specific buffs are a great tool for the devs to incentivise class diversity (if done right).

Literally the opposite of class diversity. In every way. The only way for it to be "done right" would be to remove the class restriction, make these buffs part of the passives, and have one on each skill line (which is literally how passives are supposed to work). Anything else is building in inequality on purpose, which ensures that the game will never be properly balanced.

As much as I hate Subclassing, I really don't like the idea of a skill giving a buff specifically because of your base class. It feels a lot like that one patch that made the Warden Piercing Cold passive into a buff for Ice staves specifically, basically saying "if you're a Warden and not a frost mage, you're doing it wrong."

Having said that, my read of the change that they're making to whip to tie it to the DK base class seems like it's a temporary stopgap in order to try to bump "pure DK" to the level of "Arcbladeplar" while the refresh is ongoing, and that once the other classes are taken care of they'll remove that restriction and rework it. Because otherwise, there's really no reason to play pure DK when Arcbladeplar exists, particularly in its current state.

If that were the case, however, it would be nice if they explicitly stated that.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

As much as I hate Subclassing, I really don't like the idea of a skill giving a buff specifically because of your base class. It feels a lot like that one patch that made the Warden Piercing Cold passive into a buff for Ice staves specifically, basically saying "if you're a Warden and not a frost mage, you're doing it wrong."

Having said that, my read of the change that they're making to whip to tie it to the DK base class seems like it's a temporary stopgap in order to try to bump "pure DK" to the level of "Arcbladeplar" while the refresh is ongoing, and that once the other classes are taken care of they'll remove that restriction and rework it. Because otherwise, there's really no reason to play pure DK when Arcbladeplar exists, particularly in its current state.

If that were the case, however, it would be nice if they explicitly stated that.

Explicitly stated WITH a deadline for reversal.

I don’t want to hear that it’s just temporary and get stuck in limbo waiting forever to finally have access to Ardent Flame again on my Necromancer or Templar.

The best way to encourage pure-classing is to empower passives/abilities by having more class lines selected. As has been said many times now, the current approach does nothing to restrain sub-classing power-creep. It only encourages using a Dragonknight base and then sub-classing with the same overpowered lines (e.g. Herald, Assassination).

OTOH, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills over the Whip Weapon Damage. That has always struck me as a fairly lame "stat stick" approach whose power would be better invested into developing a different actual mechanic. Passive Weapon Damage was boring and lame on Nightblade bow stacks and it is boring and lame on Whip stacks as well. That said, the current "damage done to monsters" shafts PvP and should be revisited.

Allowing Molten Whip to build up to five +33% damage stacks stacks would be spicy, IMO, for both PvP and PvE and would be the hardest-hitting non-ultimate ability in the game. Which is justified since it is a melee ability, whose risk should always be rewarded over ranged styles.

Apart from that, I would like to draw attention to the weak state of Earthen Heart. It is... not really good for anything anymore. It lost its two best passives and has several skills with no particular identity or use-case in Superheated Ward and Fragmented Shield. Neither of those are really worth choosing the skill line for.

In my opinion, single-target allied damage shield abilities are basically pointless and never worth the cast to make. So turning Superheated into a tank self-shield that provides Major Vitality would be a very desirable change. The Vitality would also synergize with the rest of the skill line (and Dragonknight in general) emphasis on self-shields and tankiness.

The nerf to Major Mending uptime in Fragmented Shield was also a heavy and completely un-compensated blow to would-be Dragonknight healers. Major Mending is a great buff but having to cast such an expensive and otherwise pointless skill every 6th GCD in order to keep it up is just not worth it. The damage shields to allies are totally out-classed by the Scribing shields (which should be nerfed, IMO) and have extremely poor scaling with Magicka. If the skill is going to remain as it is then you should, at the very least, drastically reduce its cost.

Now that the changes have been seen on PTS. Yeah i would suggest revert molten whip changes back to week 1 PTS standards and maybe add increase x% damage to monsters. Losing weapon and spell damage is terrible for PVP.

Ecgberht_confused wrote: »

I think Ardent and Draconic are in a very good place right now. New DK certainly feels refreshed! I understand there's a lot of complaints about molten pts 3 changes from pvp perspective, but people seem to have quickly forgotten that compared to live, molten stack increased from 20% to 33% (39% buff in total) AND you can gain stacks from any DK ability not just Ardent. These way outshine the 300 w/s damage it lost. Molten is in a good place and will be everywhere in pvp!

Question: the 12% monster damage buff from power lash only buffs power lash, correct? It certainly didn't buff the DK channel when I tried it. Not saying it needs to, the channel is already in a good place, just asking if that's intended, as the wording may be misleading.

Earthen Heart is dead on arrival though, I have to say. Certainly for a DK channel build where you're not continuously light attacking to benefit from the igneous weapons charges. That's not too bad, Ardent and Draconic are enough for someone to feel DK, but picking Earthen heart would in almost every case be a big self nerf

lol do you think everyone in here that does PvP is lying or ? Compare the new tooltip to mericless resolve 2nd tick of shalks ect now also bare in mind the weapon and spell damage whip had also effected your ultimate damage aswell as you’re healing aswell
So no molten whip should absolutely remain with its previous 33% buff additionally with the weapon and spell damage because even on live at ful power it will still weaker than merciless resolve which I might add you can actually fire twice if it goes like this 3 stacks is going to net you about as much damage as a strong nightblades surprise attack, or as someone said, let it stack 5 times and make it worth building up

Ecgberht_confused wrote: »

MXVIIDREAM wrote: »

Ecgberht_confused wrote: »

I think Ardent and Draconic are in a very good place right now. New DK certainly feels refreshed! I understand there's a lot of complaints about molten pts 3 changes from pvp perspective, but people seem to have quickly forgotten that compared to live, molten stack increased from 20% to 33% (39% buff in total) AND you can gain stacks from any DK ability not just Ardent. These way outshine the 300 w/s damage it lost. Molten is in a good place and will be everywhere in pvp!

Question: the 12% monster damage buff from power lash only buffs power lash, correct? It certainly didn't buff the DK channel when I tried it. Not saying it needs to, the channel is already in a good place, just asking if that's intended, as the wording may be misleading.

Earthen Heart is dead on arrival though, I have to say. Certainly for a DK channel build where you're not continuously light attacking to benefit from the igneous weapons charges. That's not too bad, Ardent and Draconic are enough for someone to feel DK, but picking Earthen heart would in almost every case be a big self nerf

lol do you think everyone in here that does PvP is lying or ?

I do pvp as well and I'm allowed an opinion, am I not? 40% buff and much easier stacks make molten very strong even without the 300 w/s damage. You can keep asking for more buffs till it becomes op and then nerfed a couple of patches later, your call.

Tool tip is already close to merciless, and you can have it every 3rd gcd not 5th. Also merciless does not need to become the new measuring stick. NB hasn't had their refresh yet and it's quite likely the whole assassination line will take a hit

The problem is that player sentiment after week two was "DK needs further buffs to get rid of the subclass meta" and the response was to remove Weapon/Spell Damage from Molten Whip (they buffed the other morph though) and nerfing Corrosive to the ground.

It's just bizarre and makes PvP feel like an afterthought.


One way to make Molten Whip competitive again in PvP (vs Flame Lash) without affecting PvE balance would be to add a heal to stacking up Seething Fury, perhaps half or one third of what you get from Flame Lash since Seething Fury is easier to stack. Would also help off set the pointless Corrosive nerfs and the resulting dent in survivability.

The new molten whip (and flame lash) buff that gives flat % dmg increase to monster should be tied to DK skills only. Otherwise it's just gonna be used to buff Beamcanists.

Maybe alter it so it says something like this:

"This morph now grants 5% damage done by DK skills & 1% for all other skills against monsters per stack, rather than 85-100 Weapon and Spell Damage. Seething Fury no longer generates stacks if you have Engulfing Dragonfire slotted on either bar."

You recognized molten was just going to be used to buff engulfing dragonfire. However missed the stronger beam, Pragmatic.

Additionally. You can make DK the strongest single target DPS in the game. It won't matter because the instances all heavily favour AOE damage & Arcanist not only has that it can apply it in the most diverse ways. Until you nerf that or find ways for other classes to compete with that. Class diversity will remain dead for 90% of the player population.

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I think that tacking Weapon Damage onto Whip was lazy design, and, in that sense, I'm glad to see it go.

But having that power simply evaporate into the ether in PvP definitely feels bad and should be revisited.

Whip ought to hit harder than Bowproc because Whip is a risky melee cast whereas Bowproc is not. Melee is barely ever rewarded in ESO and this is yet another example of that.

I still like allowing Whip to stack up to 5x stacks of +33% damage and to enshrine it as the undisputed best melee ability. But failing that, even just giving it +5% Flame Damage per stack would add the missing damage back into the PvP kit while buffing primarily DK skills.

It’s more for me that it buffs the already pretty weak healing and ultimates
However 5 stacks would absolutely make it worth using and rewarding and something I could definitely get used too

The fact that bowproc is ranged yet outperforms whip, which is not, is ridiculous. Whip should should keep its w/s damage and should be buffed to hit harder than bowproc and be able to land two fully stacked whips in a row. Single target melee should be king. Go bold and disruptive with DK or go home. There's literally no risk to erring on the side of OP and dialing back a little later if needed.