Dragonknight Ability Updates for PTS Week 4

ZOS_Amy · January 29

Hello All,

We know there’s a desire to see some further adjustments made to some Dragonknight abilities, and wanted to share the upcoming adjustments for Week 4 of the U49 PTS.

Here's what you can expect to see on the PTS on Monday of next week:

Hearthfire: Fixed an issue where this ability and its morphs didn't update their target sorting each tick. We've seen the reports that this is a larger issue with inconsistent ally targeting, and we'll be digging into a larger pass sometime in the future when time allows.

Lava Whip
- Molten Whip: Seething Fury is no longer deactivated while Engulfing Dragonfire is slotted.

Dragonfire
- Engulfing Dragonfire: This morph's stacking mechanic has been retuned to ensure this morph doesn't eclipse others, while also making its ramping effects easier to achieve consistently. Now increases in damage done by 5% every tick, regardless of enemies hit, up to 50% maximum, rather than increasing in damage done by 20% every other tick, if an enemy was hit, up to a maximum of 80%.
  
  [Developer Comment]
  We originally tried avoiding bringing this morph down in power while finding alternative solutions that enhanced other Dragonknight abilities, but in the process we've heard that the solutions felt too restrictive and unintuitive to the class kit, so we're loosening those restrictions and instead toning down the power of this morph so it still stands as a fun alternative with some contextual strengths.

Dragonknight Standard: Reduced this Ultimate and all of its morphs' cost to 200, down from 250. Reduced the base damage reduction to 7-10% based on rank, down from 9-12%. Reduced the base Weapon and Spell Damage to 270-300, down from 345-375.
- Standard of Might: This morph sees the same changes to values as the base morph. This morph now grants the caster 15% damage done, 15% reduced damage taken, and 300 Weapon and Spell Damage while inside the area, rather than 475 Weapon and Spell Damage and 12% reduced damage taken.
  
  [Developer Comment]
  We're making some adjustments to the power of this Ultimate between its morph supportive damage version and outright damage version to try and give them a healthier place in the meta. By reducing the cost to aid in uptimes we're gently reducing the supportive power, while also trying to give back some of the power to the caster to try and deliver on the sentiment many have expressed of wanting the "original" Standard back. While we're not going to exactly revert this Ultimate in efforts to avoid oversaturating Ardent Flame in the context of subclassing in the long term, we're willing to juice these values up for the time being.

Superheated Ward
- Magma Fist: This morph now gains an additional effect when hitting a target at max stacks of Heat Shock, which increases the damage done of your next Magma Fist by 66% within 6 seconds, up to once every 6 seconds. Heat Shock now lasts for 7 seconds, rather than 10, and increases damage taken by 66, up from 33 (originally 65 pre PTS).
  
  [Developer Comment]
  We're trying two adjustments here - moving Heat Shock closer to the original duration and power to hit on the feedback we've seen where many veteran players expressed the desire to see some of the mastery with this morph's upkeep return. Additionally, we're adding a little bit of power to this morph so it feels like it offers the caster something as well, so there's an alternate playstyle for Stamina focused DKs.

Magma Armor
- Corrosive Armor: This morph's penetration now once again only applies to direct damage attacks. Adjusted the damage limit to 6% of your Max Health, rather than 12% (originally 3% pre PTS). Increased the damage done by 12.5%, and it now targets all enemies instead of only monsters.
  
  [Developer Comment]
  We're walking back the penetration changes made from PTS 1 for this (and Onslaught) based on a lot of the PvP community feedback we've seen. As such, we're also lessening some of the penalties incurred - while still keeping a sharper trade off with this Ultimate compared to before. In general it'll still have a higher damage ceiling compared to live, while sacrificing some duration and survivability - but to far less of an extreme.

The changes reflected above are what you will most likely see when Update 49 launches, barring any unforeseen circumstances.

We want to thank everyone for their valuable input during this PTS cycle. We’ll have an article next week which discusses the extent of the Dragonknight refresh changes we’ve made based on your feedback and a more in-depth look at the PTS process, so be on the lookout for more info soon.

VixxVexx · January 29

Does this mean no significant changes after U49 launches? It just seems a little rushed and unfinished. (as is tradition)
Also, could you guys please tell us why dead abilities like talons and obsidian shield have remained untouched?

MXVIIDREAM · January 29

Shame whip isn’t getting the weapon and spell damage back or at least added with it
Rest of the changes look good I guess we just got to suck that PvP nerf up

pluvioisaplanet · January 29

So Shifting Standard is meant to be the outright damage morph, but it's just a little bit weak as a damage ult compared to Take Flight, as it stands there is no reason to use this ult for damage in PvE, apart from maybe once in the opening of a fight as a slightly stronger alternative to shooting star. Okay so maybe it's meant for PvP? DK has Corrosive Armor, Take Flight, Ferocious Leap, and Shifting Standard as viable options on a DD in PvP. We're asking for just 1 more in PvE so we can have 2 viable damage ults. Tbh even just a further cost reduction would go a long way, unless this would already be the case with you guys reducing the cost of the base morph? If so, we're gaming. Edit: Just read that all the morphs' costs got reduced to 200, in the case of Shifting Standard I don't think this is enough, it either needs further cost reduction or just a bit more damage and we'd be cooking

Great change on magma fist, no notes.

Unsure how hard the nerf on Engulfing Dragonfire is, considering these setups will be able to use molten whip again.

No return to Eruption? This is disappointing, we don't need it for more damage, but the identity of the skill was so good, and having a ground DoT skill in the kit can be very useful.

React · January 29

As another poster mentioned, it would have been nice to see some adjustments to the obsidian shield and talons abilities, since this is a full class overhaul and those have been left untouched so far.

Sad to see the weapon and spell damage not returned to whip - this felt a bit unwarranted given it was traded for a PVE-only buff. The 10% crit damage that was added in these same notes feels a bit out of place - the DK archetype has never been something built around crit damage, despite some of the acuity builds that have been popular recently. The weapon and spell damage was a much better fit for the class.

The corrosive change is just odd at this point. It feels like the skill was changed without a goal in mind, which is a bit worrying given how big of an issue changes of this nature were in the past. I'll get on the PTS and test everything myself next week once these final changes are released, but at first glance I'm inclined to think the week 3 version was better than what is being proposed here for week four. This ult buffing dots felt logical for the DK toolkit, despite the week one version being way too oppresive. I think what makes the most sense would be "Grants your direct damage and damage over time abilities 100% pen, reduces your damage received to 8% of your max health, and the dot only targets monsters, NOT players".

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Amy Was a verdict ever reached for the HOT stacking mechanics outlined in the pinned post? Are we going to be testing out the 8-HOT limit with the 33% reduction for exceeding it? I don't see this mentioned anywhere, but I might be missing something. It looks like in the poll from that thread, 75% of people are in favor of testing this ruleset whilst 25% of voters were against it. It looks like @ZOS_BrianWheeler posted an update confirming we will see this change come with U49. It was difficult to find this confirmation though as it was buried 5 pages deep into the comment section of that thread.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/688010/poll-pvp-hot-stacking-options-for-update-49/p1

YandereGirlfriend · January 29

Earthen Heart and especially Fragmented Shield seem to be a permanent blind spot for the team.

The damage shield scaling on Fragmented Shield is super weak and completely outclassed by the Scribing group shields and the huge reduction in Major Mending time makes the skill unappealing for Dragonknight healers. Dedicating 1/6 of your total casts of an expensive ability just to keep up the buff is simply NOT WORTH IT.

Ratzkifal · January 29

This change to Corrosive Armor feels more fair than the Week 3 version, but it's a bit of a let down considering that added penetration for damage over time effects (something that Dragonknight famously likes) was on the table before. But at least the damage over time effect is now back for PvP which makes it sting less that Corrosive went from 3% to 6% (doubling damage taken compared to the live server). We'll have to see how it feels in actual combat.

I also still hope you are going to change the names of Protect the Brood and The Storm Voice as dragons don't have children (they are timeless beings and it's the reason why all of our mini dragon pets are illusion imps, and Dragonknights are not connected to the Thu'um as Gabrielle Benele points out - they are followers of an Akaviri/Tsaesci martial art and their fire seems to be regular destruction magic (as classified by Shad Astula) with no connection to the language of dragons other than "vibes". Please don't misinform your players about your own lore.

Decimus · January 29

Thank you for listening about Corrosive, will have to test it again on Live (where you can have more people than one hitting you in PvP), but I think 6% is a manageable number with the increased damage (faster time-to-kill) & additional healing options. Should be worth slotting on a non-support PvP build again over Magma Shell atleast.

That said, it'd be interesting if Magma Shell could provide penetration to DoTs to offer that option for people who want to build more around DoTs rather than direct damage - it wouldn't really buff the morph for support builds because DoT penetration isn't really desired on supports, but would make it an interesting option for some damage builds.

For people upset about Molten Whip (I was one of them as well) consider this: you can use Magma Fist to stack it & deliver a lot of burst with a stacked Magma Fist (+66% modifier) into Molten Whip (+100% modifier), while simultaneously buffing DoT pressure a lot with the Magma Fist.

So indirectly this morph becomes better for certain builds with the changes to Magma Fist, while others will prefer running Flame Lash. Very interesting change, promotes some different playstyles on DK too. Nice.

That said, I'd like to echo some comments here about Talons & Obsidian Shield, these abilities still feel extremely weak and would be nice to see them updated to the same standard as other reworked DK abilities in the future!

Overall, faith in next patch restored. Good job ZOS!

Arthtur · January 29

I don't think Standard changes are enough as there was nothing done about the lost damage after Searing Heat removal (25% more damage and +4s duration). Especially Shifting Standard as that morph did not see ANY adjustment. While reduced cost is really nice, Leap will still have better uptime. But maybe it will be good enough to use as an opener.

Magma Fist change is great.

Sad to see no changes to Talons. It's still expensive for a spammable because of CC, synergy is still tied to CC which makes it usless against elite enemies. I would love to see synergy tied to a DoT and some magicka return, 30% maybe, if no enemy is CC, something like with chain.

Also sad that we didn't get back Eruption. At least new version is a solid solo skill.

Anyway, im happy with this PTS. I wouldn't mind another week of it but it is what it is. Communication was great, except PTS duration change but whatever, feedback was acted upon and not ignored. It was great. At least from PvE side of things.

I really hope that while you will be working on next updates for classes you will find some time for Guild Skill Lines and Scribing as those need updates too. And sets. There is a lot of sets that would be nice to use with some buffs.

Good job.

PeacefulAnarchy · January 29

I don't pvp much so at this point I have no idea where corrosive stands powerwise, but magma armor and magama shell at least should have their ulti gen restored. Magma shell is a good situational ult, it is not so strong that it deserves to nullify your ult gen for 15 seconds.

Glad to see the Magma Fist change.

Striiiks · January 29

React wrote: »

As another poster mentioned, it would have been nice to see some adjustments to the obsidian shield and talons abilities, since this is a full class overhaul and those have been left untouched so far.

Sad to see the weapon and spell damage not returned to whip - this felt a bit unwarranted given it was traded for a PVE-only buff. The 10% crit damage that was added in these same notes feels a bit out of place - the DK archetype has never been something built around crit damage, despite some of the acuity builds that have been popular recently. The weapon and spell damage was a much better fit for the class.

The corrosive change is just odd at this point. It feels like the skill was changed without a goal in mind, which is a bit worrying given how big of an issue changes of this nature were in the past. I'll get on the PTS and test everything myself next week once these final changes are released, but at first glance I'm inclined to think the week 3 version was better than what is being proposed here for week four. This ult buffing dots felt logical for the DK toolkit, despite the week one version being way too oppresive. I think what makes the most sense would be "Grants your direct damage and damage over time abilities 100% pen, reduces your damage received to 8% of your max health, and the dot only targets monsters, NOT players".

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Amy Was a verdict ever reached for the HOT stacking mechanics outlined in the pinned post? Are we going to be testing out the 8-HOT limit with the 33% reduction for exceeding it? I don't see this mentioned anywhere, but I might be missing something. It looks like in the poll from that thread, 75% of people are in favor of testing this ruleset whilst 25% of voters were against it. It looks like @ZOS_BrianWheeler posted an update confirming we will see this change come with U49. It was difficult to find this confirmation though as it was buried 5 pages deep into the comment section of that thread with no dev tracker tag.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/688010/poll-pvp-hot-stacking-options-for-update-49/p1

This. Please Zos, listen.

Ratzkifal · January 29

PeacefulAnarchy wrote: »

I don't pvp much so at this point I have no idea where corrosive stands powerwise, but magma armor and magama shell at least should have their ulti gen restored. Magma shell is a good situational ult, it is not so strong that it deserves to nullify your ult gen for 15 seconds.

Glad to see the Magma Fist change.

@PeacefulAnarchy Actually Magma shell is the reason the ult gen is nullified because when using it, especially with Elf Bane being able to extend its duration (but not that of old Corrosive Armor), it made dealing with Marauders in Infinite Archive trivially easy. You could build up your ult again to full before the duration ended. I would disagree that it was trivially easy to deal with Marauders, but it was certainly the reason why Dragonknights were consistently scoring the highest in Infinite Archive until subclassing.
Functionally it is now in line with Bone Goliath, Blood Scion and Werewolf (if you ignore the virtually infinite duration of Werewolf for a moment). Should it be in line with them? Honestly, I'm not sure, but at least three of these make you "almost invulnerable" for their duration, so the comparison is not without merit.

YandereGirlfriend · January 29

Ratzkifal wrote: »

PeacefulAnarchy wrote: »

I don't pvp much so at this point I have no idea where corrosive stands powerwise, but magma armor and magama shell at least should have their ulti gen restored. Magma shell is a good situational ult, it is not so strong that it deserves to nullify your ult gen for 15 seconds.

Glad to see the Magma Fist change.

@PeacefulAnarchy Actually Magma shell is the reason the ult gen is nullified because when using it, especially with Elf Bane being able to extend its duration (but not that of old Corrosive Armor), it made dealing with Marauders in Infinite Archive trivially easy. You could build up your ult again to full before the duration ended. I would disagree that it was trivially easy to deal with Marauders, but it was certainly the reason why Dragonknights were consistently scoring the highest in Infinite Archive until subclassing.
Functionally it is now in line with Bone Goliath, Blood Scion and Werewolf (if you ignore the virtually infinite duration of Werewolf for a moment). Should it be in line with them? Honestly, I'm not sure, but at least three of these make you "almost invulnerable" for their duration, so the comparison is not without merit.

Magma Shell getting nerfed due to IA cheesers will always feel bad.

It drives up the "actual" cost of the ultimate to about 250 ultimate (since 3 ult/sec * 15 sec = 45 lost ult), which perhaps would have been a more sensible method to achieve a similar result (though with on-demand Horse-based Major Heroism, which always was a stupid buff to attach to that spammable skill, it would not have completely solved the supposed problem; but perhaps it would have when combined with a nerf to Horse).

MXVIIDREAM · January 29

No mention of adjusting/ buffing the avalanche times is pretty sad news aswell

Wup_sa · January 29

So you made dk worse in pvp than it's on live. Unreliable CC, whip nerfed, FoO removed. Now we just spam poop rock to get stacks or play lash? Also what is the point of adding dot penetration to corossive for only to take it away? The ultimate isn't very strong, people struggling against it are just bad, but now it's as "useful" as on live.

Wasn't the reworks supposed to bring pure classes on par with subclasses? This very much fails to do so for pvp.

MXVIIDREAM · January 29

seeing the update it’s much better I would have liked to have seen something done with
Blessings of the peak 10% crit damage I’d like that to be crit healing also for buffs to every role specifically healers and tanks
Avalanche specifically a buff or adjustment to the timer 50seconds to build is so so high just to lose it every immune phase
molten whip the revert back to wd/sdincluding maybe 2% damage per stack to monsters

That’s all I want changed and to be honest everything most other people have mentioned too

YandereGirlfriend · January 29

Also please eliminate the Flame Damage Taken debuff and replace it with a personal Flame Damage Done buff.

You are repeating the exact same mistakes that mechanically codified Flame Damage as the Golden Child damage type of PvE. WHY?!

By all means allow classes to individually excel at their respective damage types but do not force it on everyone else.

BasP · January 29

Thank you for another update. Overall, I definitely like the upcoming changes and look forward to the week 4 PTS. The change to Magma Fist looks great, I like the adjustment to Molten Whip/ Engulfing Dragonfire and at least Standard of Might received some of its power back.

Even though this will be the last week of the PTS, I would personally like to see Burning Talons get buffed someday. With the changes to Magma Fist I feel like Draconic Power is the worst DK skill line for PvE DPS, despite having Take Flight in it, so it could use a little more oomph in my opinion.

Still, I have to say that I like the amount of changes that have been made over the course of this PTS based on player feedback and the increased communication has been great to see as well. I'm definitely looking forward to the next class refreshes myself.

Freelancer_ESO · January 29

Thanks for the update.

I get that you guys are time crunched but, I do hope long term you possibly revisit the DK ultimate abilities. At this point, it looks like you'll have three different DK ultimate abilities that all offer +% damage. (Edit: It appears only two are as the Corrosive damage change may only mean the DOT.)

I would also note that part of the appeal from the older Elder Scrolls titles was being able to have a more mundane character. If a person is going to be needing to run virtually all class skills to be effective and the class skills are all super magical and glowy the characters aren't really going to be able to be mundane.

Emeratis · January 29

First, thank you for looking into a Hearthfire fix and committing to looking at other heals that have longstanding targeting issues down the line. This news is so exciting to hear.

I also want to agree with what Freelancer said about as much as I love class skills and want to see classes and subclassing have more equalized power and choices, I do hope that weapon lines and other skill lines like psijic, vampirism, undaunted, etc get some love down the line too. I understand why classes are the main priority right now and I absolutely agree with that decision, I'm just asking the other skill lines aren't forgotten after class balance settles a bit.

xylena · January 29

Can Talons be 7m?

Radiate77 · January 29

Whip is still Dragonknight ONLY.
We love to see it. /s

Tyrobag · January 29

So whip is still screwed up? I thought you guys were trying to move away from forcing through massively unpopular changes added in the last stages of the PTS? So much for player focused changes. The refresh has dropped from a 7/10 to a 3/10 from where I'm standing. I was honestly hoping ZoS had finally seen the light, but apparently not.

ssewallb14_ESO · January 29

I... don't understanding nerfing Engulfing Dragonfire when it was already weaker than fatecarver, and single target pure class DK pulled ahead after the last incremental.

Whip setups even have good aoe, it's just better in most encounters.

Now it's just better to be the same subclass Arc setup everyone is bored to death of if you want cleave. Why nerf something that would've been a fun alternative?

AdmiralDigby · January 29

It's a mistake to let Molten Whip buff flat damage to monsters for ALL skills. I forsee it mainly being used to buff Fatecarver.

PeacefulAnarchy · January 29

Ratzkifal wrote: »

PeacefulAnarchy wrote: »

I don't pvp much so at this point I have no idea where corrosive stands powerwise, but magma armor and magama shell at least should have their ulti gen restored. Magma shell is a good situational ult, it is not so strong that it deserves to nullify your ult gen for 15 seconds.

Glad to see the Magma Fist change.

@PeacefulAnarchy Actually Magma shell is the reason the ult gen is nullified because when using it, especially with Elf Bane being able to extend its duration (but not that of old Corrosive Armor), it made dealing with Marauders in Infinite Archive trivially easy. You could build up your ult again to full before the duration ended. I would disagree that it was trivially easy to deal with Marauders, but it was certainly the reason why Dragonknights were consistently scoring the highest in Infinite Archive until subclassing.
Functionally it is now in line with Bone Goliath, Blood Scion and Werewolf (if you ignore the virtually infinite duration of Werewolf for a moment). Should it be in line with them? Honestly, I'm not sure, but at least three of these make you "almost invulnerable" for their duration, so the comparison is not without merit.

Yeah, and I thought it was a silly change then, IA is a place where the whole point of higher stages is doing weird niche stuff to get ahead, and once subclassing came along it was accessible to anyone anyway. But regardless, it no longer usable with elfbane. Both Bone Goliath morphs have offensive power as do the Blood Scion morphs. So you could make the comparison to Corrosive, but Magma is purely defensive now.

If I have to choose between 10s duration and ultigen vs 15s duration and no ulti gen I want the ultigen. As a defensive skill (rather than an IA cheese skill) I don't need a longer duration, I need to be able to use it when I need it to rez, regain resources, or avoid some ridiculous damage that I got myself into a position where I can't use my other tools to avoid. It's an escape button and I want to be able to go back to supporting my group with other ults. The extra 5 seconds is just making my ultigen worse for no meaningful advantage.

pluvioisaplanet · January 29

Already commented this here, but I want to post it again for it to stand as its own comment.

But please take another look at Shifting Standard, it just needs a small buff to be good, which can be done through reduced cost or simply increased damage. It needs to be stronger than or at the same level of Take Flight, otherwise it simply will not see use in PvE, or much at least. Buffing it to the level of Take Flight would make it another option alongside Take Flight, while Take Flight remains stronger for setups using Disintegrating Dragonfire because of the interaction between these 2 skills. I really don't think it needs much to be genuinely good.

Yes, Take Flight is an awesome skill, but how much more on theme for dragonknight can you get than setting everything around you on fire, and in the middle of it all, a commanding banner

tomofhyrule · January 29

PeacefulAnarchy wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

PeacefulAnarchy wrote: »

I don't pvp much so at this point I have no idea where corrosive stands powerwise, but magma armor and magama shell at least should have their ulti gen restored. Magma shell is a good situational ult, it is not so strong that it deserves to nullify your ult gen for 15 seconds.

Glad to see the Magma Fist change.

PeacefulAnarchy Actually Magma shell is the reason the ult gen is nullified because when using it, especially with Elf Bane being able to extend its duration (but not that of old Corrosive Armor), it made dealing with Marauders in Infinite Archive trivially easy. You could build up your ult again to full before the duration ended. I would disagree that it was trivially easy to deal with Marauders, but it was certainly the reason why Dragonknights were consistently scoring the highest in Infinite Archive until subclassing.
Functionally it is now in line with Bone Goliath, Blood Scion and Werewolf (if you ignore the virtually infinite duration of Werewolf for a moment). Should it be in line with them? Honestly, I'm not sure, but at least three of these make you "almost invulnerable" for their duration, so the comparison is not without merit.

Yeah, and I thought it was a silly change then, IA is a place where the whole point of higher stages is doing weird niche stuff to get ahead, and once subclassing came along it was accessible to anyone anyway. But regardless, it no longer usable with elfbane. Both Bone Goliath morphs have offensive power as do the Blood Scion morphs. So you could make the comparison to Corrosive, but Magma is purely defensive now.

If I have to choose between 10s duration and ultigen vs 15s duration and no ulti gen I want the ultigen. As a defensive skill (rather than an IA cheese skill) I don't need a longer duration, I need to be able to use it when I need it to rez, regain resources, or avoid some ridiculous damage that I got myself into a position where I can't use my other tools to avoid. It's an escape button and I want to be able to go back to supporting my group with other ults. The extra 5 seconds is just making my ultigen worse for no meaningful advantage.

This I think is very relevant.

The Magma Shell morph is specifically a defensive option - especially with the changes from live - and blocking ultigen for longer means it’s able to help the group less. The extra length of the ability is nowhere near as important as being able to get ult back.

I really would prefer allowing ultigen for Shell, but then having an actual cooldown on the ability itself so it can’t be spammed in cooldown like the Archive cheese. But being blocked out of things like Pillager/Cryptcanon to give horns (or support standards!) to the group is not cool.

ThePainGuy · January 29

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_Amy

Thanks for the continued communication and changes throughout the PTS period. Some of the changes players asked for were given and I am sure there are some players still hoping for some additional flavor to the DK class. Overall moving in the right direction.

Can you pass this along to the teams at Zenimax. Quote: "If it aint broke, do not fix it." Just want to highlight molten whip changes. Week 1 whip changes most players were on board with. PVE players primarily wanted more power to DK overall to match subclassing parses. And PVP players were ok with molten whip and how the seething fury stacks worked. However, ZOS changed whip to account for PVE power at the cost of some unique flavor molten whip with seething fury presented for PVP. The ramping WD/SD increase with using DK abilities reinforced using the class kit in PVP which would then strengthen its DOTS and heals which feeds into its pressure and battle of attrition fantasy. Subsequently many players vocalized that sacrificing the PVP flavor for PVE felt off. And it seems this is the current state of this ability moving forward. The only frustration here is that we should be empowering DK and its class fantasy for both PVE and PVP as much as possible. And given ZOS 10+ year track record, when these changes go live; good luck with adjustments and changes. It will be late 2026 or 2027 before we revisit some of these changes (I hope I am wrong here).

Overall though I appreciate your increased communication with the community.

Namacc · January 29

I was one of few playing stamdk on pts in duels. I was using the old deep slash build but with magma fist instead. The latest change to magma fist is great for pvp, the increase in heat shock, buffs our good old stamdk dots, now with flame damage and the increased damage stack (the 66%) brings it closer to whip while staying more in theme for stamdk of brute strength. My only complaint about magma fist is I wish it was a true melee spammable with a melee animation (like encase your fist in stone and slam it into target). I get you kept it ranged to help with uptime of heat shock in pve but from a pvp perspective it feels off slightly when weaving compared to older melee spammables used on stamdk like deep slash. It also feels out of place on a melee class to use a ranged skill.

Not a fan of the latest corrosive changes. The removal of penetration for DoTs is unnecessary. The ultimate was over performing due to the strong corro dot itself combined with pen. You fixed this by making the dot only affect monsters. The pen for other dots such as strike, dragonfire and burning ticks was fine and enabled more build variety like older stamdk builds.

Like React mentioned, the previous week 3 version was fine, corrosive has always been an iconic part of dk's kit which reinforces playing a knight - a damage dealer tank. All you had to do was lower the damage to max health from 12% to 6% - 8%.

If you really insist on giving the corro dot back for pvp then nerf the damage of the corro dot down (to like 100%), and enable the pen for all attacks, so that when used with the penetration it's a decent value and not op like week 1. Buff the damage of the dot versus monsters by x% so it's the same value as the proposed week 4 change in pve. Either keep the 6% max health or go back to 8% with these changes.

In regards to dk changes and communication this pts has been great, keep this up. However, I'm disappointed with the lack of changes to 2h. You nerfed the op crit chance on onslaught in pvp which was a good change, but besides the early changes to dizzy cast time, and rally/ forward momentum duration the team didn't look at the balance of 2h passives. Ever since hybridization there's no incentive to build into weapon lines like old stamina playstyles, hybrid builds are always better. The visual rework of weapon lines should also balance them with the same thought and open communication as you've done with dk.

For 2 hander, this line could emphasize burst damage, stamina sustain and defense by heals, through it's skills and passives. The scaling of dk passives per dk skill slotted is something I'd like to see weapon lines make use of to give benefits to building into a weapon line at the cost of class power in pvp.

For example the types of changes I'd like to see for 2h

Rally/ Forward Momentum

Rally
Buff the heal further to be similar in tooltip to magicka burst heals and lower the increase heal scaling. With this you could use rally as a dedicated burst heal instead of magicka choices in pvp.

Forward Momentum
While the duration increase is nice, it's not worth using over typical damage buff skill and movement + snare skill. Return the hot to forward momentum, the tooltip could be 1k heal every 2 secs fully buffed. This way you're slower than using race against time but have healing to compensate and we can get major expedition from a different source.

Passives

Forceful

Currently this skill makes light and heavy attacks damage nearby enemies for 100% of the damage done to primary target. Change this so single target 2 handed damage skills in addition to light and heavy attacks damage nearby enemies for x percentage. Lower the percentage to compensate but add increased percent per 2 handed skill slotted.

Heavy Weapons

This passive is great as is. The effects could be increased slightly for each 2 hander skill slotted.

Balanced Blade

Currently this reduces stamina cost of 2 hander skills while holding a 2 handed weapon. Like dk's previous dot damage and duration passive, this effect is redundant. You have to be using a 2 handed weapon to cast 2 handed skills anyway. The cost should be baked into the skills. Replace this effect with something else.

Follow Up

Currently increases damage done with 2 hander attacks by 10% after doing a fully-charged heavy attack. Change this to buff all damage and increase the damage per 2 hander skill slotted.

Battle Rush

Currently increases stamina regen by 30% for 10 seconds after killing an enemy. Useless in 1v1 and nice open world. Replace with increases stamina regen by x value or x %. Increase the stamina sustain per 2 hander skill slotted and increased further per enemy killed. Have the stamina regen effect apply while on either bar.

MXVIIDREAM · January 30

Decimus wrote: »

Thank you for listening about Corrosive, will have to test it again on Live (where you can have more people than one hitting you in PvP), but I think 6% is a manageable number with the increased damage (faster time-to-kill) & additional healing options. Should be worth slotting on a non-support PvP build again over Magma Shell atleast.

That said, it'd be interesting if Magma Shell could provide penetration to DoTs to offer that option for people who want to build more around DoTs rather than direct damage - it wouldn't really buff the morph for support builds because DoT penetration isn't really desired on supports, but would make it an interesting option for some damage builds.

For people upset about Molten Whip (I was one of them as well) consider this: you can use Magma Fist to stack it & deliver a lot of burst with a stacked Magma Fist (+66% modifier) into Molten Whip (+100% modifier), while simultaneously buffing DoT pressure a lot with the Magma Fist.

So indirectly this morph becomes better for certain builds with the changes to Magma Fist, while others will prefer running Flame Lash. Very interesting change, promotes some different playstyles on DK too. Nice.

That said, I'd like to echo some comments here about Talons & Obsidian Shield, these abilities still feel extremely weak and would be nice to see them updated to the same standard as other reworked DK abilities in the future!

Overall, faith in next patch restored. Good job ZOS!

Disagree tbh now I’m forced to drop a skill on the front bar for magma pigeon holed into that so my whip hits a couple of hundred more 🤣 no where near bow procs and now we need to build 2different sets of stacks (ones an expensive stamina skill RIP MAG DKS) I also now can’t use the shield morph on my back bar all so we can have a weaker bow proc less often 🤣yeah very poor nerf on this tbh I don’t see the issue with giving back wd/sd it’s the easiest obvious choice so many people have asked for I don’t see the issue and they won’t give us a reason either
And they
Ignore the whole crit damage + healing in the new passive comments from a huge number of people
Ignore everyone saying the avalanche times are an issue in most content to long to build stack immune phases resetting them ect again lots of people have said this

Sad because the communication was so good to start with now they’re just not even explaining anything or addressing it guess dks staying mid to low behind other classes even after the refresh shame