I think the newest changes to Corrosive (11.3.2) are overkill. You already nerfed the survivability of Corrosive from a 3% limit to now a 12% limit, why also take away the damage over time? This is effectively only going to reduce only the very largest of hits, like ultimates, Null-Arca procs, Relentless Focus etc. That's already a big nerf. And remember, it reduces them. It does not nullify them, nor does it mitigate anything below that 12% threshold. At this rate there will be very little reason to be using Corrosive over Onslaught, considering that Corrosive also negates your ultimate generation for its duration, which is a big drawback it has over the twohanded ultimate. And thanks to the reshuffling of abilities, as well as in the context of Subclassing, Corrosive has also lost the healing and sustain it originally gained from passives in Earthen Heart that have now moved to Draconic Might. Without any changes from the live server, just from the reshuffling alone, Corrosive Armor has contextually lost power to Leap, and it was already not being used much anymore as is. Nerfing Corrosive Armor this hard is unnecessary and a big mistake in my opinion.

This is a general, long-standing issue with balancing in this game. It often feels like the developers brainstorm ways in which to nerf a skill and instead of deciding on one, they simply implement all of them at once, completely gutting the ability in the process. Originally I was excited for Corrosive Armor being back to providing penetration to direct and over-time abilities again. The limit change to 8% was harsh but fair in my opinion, but 12% is too much if you are also taking away the new dot in the process. Is this ability supposed to be used offensively or defensively? Make up your mind please. At this point it would make more sense to get rid of the 12% limit completely and just add the poison damage again so the ultimate can be purely offensive. That would at least justify why Onslaught and Corrosive would provide the same penetration effect but one ultimate negates your ultimate gain for its duration.
I'm currently using Corrosive Armor on my DK on the live server but this change is making me think of switching away from Corrosive if this goes live, when it previously read like the intention was to buff Corrosive armor, not nerf it further.

From a PvE DD pov

The most recent DK changes are very nice, some initial testings on pure dk resulted in 164k for the non-firebeam version, and 170k for the firebeam (although there's doubt about how applicable the setup used would be in content), a nice big bump from before. But, the fact that non-firebeam is still weaker or just barely better in ST parses than firebeam is very silly, especially considering the fact that the 164k parse achieved on the non-firebeam dk was with huntsman's warmask, killing aoe potential, while the 170k firebeam parse was with velothi, meaning it doesn't sacrifice aoe whatsoever. Steps in the right direction though!

Parses here (not my own, these are from very good parsers)



The questionability(?) of the firebeam parse is shown in the screenshot above, because it uses power lash which is relying on Off-Balance, making the rotation somewhat inconsistent and difficult to translate into content.

Edit: But even if you take that away, before these changes firebeam dk was hitting 158k, 164k on the non-firebeam dk is really not much higher, especially consider how much less aoe damage it would be doing compared to the firebeam.

Still would like to see the return of Standard as a good damage ult, this felt so integral to the DK's kit, losing it really sucks and surely you guys are aware of that by now with how much this specific point has been echoed. Give it something, one of the morphs, make it empower ardent flame skills like whip to help close the gap between non-firebeam and firebeam, or give it more damage, just something. Edit: We don't necessarily need Standard of Might reverted, although something in this direction would be the ideal, but buffing up Shifting Standard to the same power level of Take Flight but for Ardent Flame would also be another perfectly viable option.

Losing Eruption is still another pain point, it's been such a cool skill to use in the dk rotation, feels really bad to lose it especially considering that the skill already had a morph to heal

And again Burning Talons still are a bit lacking, and could use just a minor damage boost, this would help the non-firebeam dk a bit, since it would be very difficult to fit this skill into a firebeam rotation.

Another Edit: Otherwise, love the damage increase on Searing Claw and Disintegrating Dragonfire (this name is a bit of a mouthful, too much?), still wish they'd tick once every 1s instead of 2s, this would help bring sets like Runecarver back to being relevant. Probably not that necessary though, feels good to have dots do damage again

I'd also like to make just a short comment about tanking and healing on the dk,

The effectiveness of a tank or healer is not based on how durable the tank is or how much heals per second a healer can put out, they are the source of many important buffs in groups, and this should be reflected in the skills used for these roles. Right now, all of the dk lines are still lacking a bit in both of these roles for buff output, especially since the lines are so split, this is especially sad for the tank side of things considering dk tank has been such a staple for many years

Another Another Edit: 168k has now been reached on non-firebeam pure dk, with this result I'd say the actual balancing lands quite nicely, good job! Still would like to see standard have use as a damage ult again, especially for the non-firebeam dk. Having the two different damage ults encouraging different playstyles would be so cool.

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Ustavshiy wrote: »

"Is there anything else you would like to share about the DK changes?"
The new visual effects are disgusting and actually don't fit into the visual style of the game. For example: the brutality buff seems to be taken from WoW or old parts of God of War, which I personally don't like. Overall, the visual reworking of DK (IMHO) It looks like it's taken from asian or mobile games. Those who did this should be fired.

This is a wacky take haha

Why? The first thing I thought of with the new Igneous Weapons was also "WoW" this sucks. Games should have their own unique styles and if they start to become homegenized, then that deserves to be called out. The other visiual changes have issues too.

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 loosing this in PvP is huge 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

xencthlu wrote: »

Just to counterbalance the other voices in here, I like that stamina Dragon Knights will be able to use fire. Elder scrolls dragons don't even have poison breath attacks.

I want to again call attention to how stamina Dragon Knights do not have enough resource support. Core of flame, Hearthfire, Inferno, Dark Talons, Dragon Blood, Wing Buffet, Chains of Flame, Molten Weapons, Obsidian Shield, Petrify, and Earthspike Mantle do not have stamina morphs. 26 of a dragon knight's 30 abilities are purely magicka. All of the pure stamina variants are attacks (Searing Claw, Disintegrating Dragonfire, Magma Fist.) And one, the spammable, is a mix of magicka and stamina. If the average stamina build has 19k magicka, and a Dragon Knight is expected to self-buff with a Molten Weapons morph for major brutality/sorcery, Shatterspike Mantle for major resolve, and Inferno for burning before combat, they're already below half their max magicka before a single attack. And then molten whip still uses a considerable 1.1k magicka per hit. Heart of Flame doesn't even cover the cost of itself and a single other magicka ability on a stamina build. (One tick of Heart of Flame will recover 2.8k magicka, and its cost is 3.4k. A stamina DK will recover 2260 magicka after both ticks and after deducting Heart of Flame's cost, which is only enough for two Molten Whips. Or, not even one Incinerate.) After bottoming out one's magicka, the stamina Dragon Knight will be useless, because Molten Whip still requires magicka to cast.

With the newfound emphasis on slotting nothing but Dragon Knight abilities to pump the class's effectiveness, this will lead to a situation where a stamina Dragon Knight cannot afford to use most of the abilities on their bars, but will still want to slot them to maximise pure class effectiveness. Some people say in this age of hybridisation the stamina vs magicka dichotomy is dead, but I assure you in solo play and small group play, such as IA, it is very much not. Recovery is not a solved problem in a significant swath of the game. I ask again for some of these morphs to have stamina variants, so that I might be able to use these abilities on a character build for stamina. Fragmented shield is cool. Blood of the Elder Dragon is cool. Fleetstep Wings is cool. I would love to be able to use them.

Again, is the Dragon Knight chassis intended to support stamina builds at all? Or is this a class only intended for magicka builds?

This is exactly why a number of dragonknight abilities should cost whichever maximum resource is higher. Not all necessarily but a good number of them in my opinion

Since it's already Week 3 and the some of the names of the new DK abilities are still horrible, I feel like I need to make a long post about this before it's too late.

• Blood of the Green/Elder Dragon -> Green/Elder Dragon's Blood
  The community is going to call it that no matter what, because it's just easier and not as unwieldy. Might as well rename the ability.
• "Protect the Brood" is disinformation
  Dragons do not have children. They have no brood and certainly not one that needs protecting. Sure, we can chalk it up to mortals being uninformed, but why must we give the players the same misconceptions? Please rename this.
• Corrosive Armor is no longer "corrosive"
  Without the ties to acid/poison, there is nothing "corrosive" about this armor anymore. My suggestion remains Incandescent Armor because of its new dot effect.
• The Storm Voice, including its description, falsely suggests a connection between Dragonknights and the Thu'um.
  You are making Gabrielle Benele seem extremely incompetent to not recognize Dragonknight magic as the Thu'um if you are honestly suggesting that every DK out there is spamming dragonshouts whenever they cast Engulfing Flames. Dragonknights are followers of an Akaviri martial art that mimicks dragonshouts but isn't actually connected to the Thu'um at all. Don't spread disinformation to your players, ZOS. For people less versed in the lore and those that haven't played Skyrim, "The Storm Voice" sounds like something boosting Shock damage, so probably some Sorcerer ability, right?

For the love of Mara, if you are going to rename things already, please make the names make sense! Protect the Brood and The Storm Voice are by far the biggest offenders here.

Also another issue that came up when testing the new DK was the new Molten Weapons covers up the expensive crown store flaming weapons we bought for our DKs. I already read some comments that not everybody likes the new look of molten weapons and while I don't mind them, it sucks that it covers up your own weapons you specifically got for DKs. I'd appreciate if there was a toggle for this somewhere in the menu. The same toggle could also apply to Sorcerer's Bound Aegis, which I will assume will also work like this after their combat refresh.

Sorry for tagging @ZOS_Kevin but it's page 12 already and I feel like these issues are going to be drowned out in all the balance discussions otherwise. Please pass this feedback along!

Some thoughts on the Whip changes in the latest PTS iteration:

I don't mind that some skills are stronger if this is the skill line of your base class. But Ardent Flame is the only skill line that has something like that. Therefore, Ardent Flame is THE DD skill line for DKs - we've already been through it, and this rework was intended to fix this problem. More to it, a lot of DK power-budget goes to one skill - that's bad.

If you want buff pure-DK, redistribute some power from the Whip to other skills and skill lines and make it "Only if you're DK". Something like that:

Whip gets WPD/SPD back (I have no idea what to do with Flame Lash, maybe leave it with some % damage to monsters?)
Talons get a unique % damage taken debuff - it will also penalise breath-DKs, who are still overperforming non-breath-DKs, because they can't uptime Talons so easily.
Shatterspike Mantle gets, idk, double flat damage bonus.
All of these apply only if you're DK.

With these changes, DK power-budget would be distributed more evenly between all the skill lines - you're not punished for not using one specific skill line (or just skill).

Another problem I want to address: adjusting pure-DK power levels to multiclassed characters. Right now, devs have decided to increase pure-DKs to the level of multiclassed characters. IMO, it should be the other way around: power creep got out of control; you should try to reign it in.

Herald and Assassination overperform - just start moving their passives to other skill lines. It will reduce the damage ceiling, because these skill lines will no longer be SO packed with good things. I would be satisfied for now if Arc/NB/Plar would parse 160k and pure non-breath-DK would parse 150k - 6% DPS difference looks fine, because on live the difference between pure-DK and Arc/NB/DK is around 35%.

Of course, damage nerfs won't be popular. But with multiclassing, DPS went through the roof - you have to either restrict it, or start working on, idk, mythical dungeons/trials for older content, those are so powercrept.

Some feedback on PvE DK-healing:

Ardent Flame:

Standard of Might - nice support ultimate, but it's better to put it on a tank, who'll benefit from more damage reduction, or a DD, who'll benefit from additional WPD. Technically, healers also benefit from WPD, but you have enough healing power for it to be redundant.

Fire Keeper - HoT is good, Minor Heroism is good, but it's unreliable because it has poor targeting (more on it in Icky's post - https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/discussion/688167/u49-pts-dk-healing-skills-targeting). Overall, it's a decent source of Minor Heroism for casual groups, who don't have Heroism Potions - uptimes won't be good, but it's better than nothing, I guess.

Cauterise - just some HoT with smart targeting, also gives Major Crit - nothing to be excited about, but not bad. I don't know why it wasn't stated in the patch notes that its target cap was increased to 6.

Passives - no useful passives.

Draconic Power:

Blood of the Elder Dragon - Minor Courage is nice, but once again, it has poor targeting, because it only applies to healed targets. Warding Burst is more reliable because it applies Minor Courage to the closest allies, so you can control who gets the buffs. Unlike Warding Burst, it procs Pearls, but you can put something else on Warding Burst, like HoT or ultigen.

Protect the Brood - extremely situational in PvE, but still has a target cap of 6 (applies to the closest allies) - if you worry about it's being OP in PvP, just apply battlespirit, but make it target the whole group in PvE. Otherwise, in PvE, it competes with Warding Contingency - Shield+Gladiator's Tenacity+Protection, which effectively does the same, and with Growing Impact, you will keep Minor Protection on everyone, and it will be less situational.

Passives - Storm Voice is HARMFUL if you're using Pearls, and a lot of healers do use them. Elder Dragon is fine, but finish hybridisation, please - if I'm not using Heroism Potions, I'm using Spell Power Potions, and with them I'm not benefiting from this passive, unless I have another source of Major WPD buff.

Earthen Heart:

Volcanic Ward - poor targeting once again. You may want to apply it to your tank before they take some hits, but it will go on someone else. And without the unique damage reduction component, it competes with Warding Soul, which also has poor targeting and can provide something like Major Vitality. Also competes with Magma Fist, because it's another Morph, but with lower damage increase from it, you probably won't be bothered keeping it as a healer.

Igneous Weapons - decent skill if someone in your group needs a Major WPD buff. The problem here is that only healers need it; everyone else will run Inspired Scholarship, or Skeletal Archer, or DK DDs will use Igneous Weapons themselves.

Fragmented Shield - it's a shield, so it won't proc Pearls. Major Mending is generally useless in PvE, since you have enough HPS to outheal anything, but it's nice in PvP, because of the Battle Spirit. Also, the shield is weaker (I think) than ones from Warding Contingency/Burst, with no additional buffs to your allies - why should I use it over them in PvE?

Passives - Blessing at the Peak gives decent ultimate if you're keeping Major Mending from Fragmented Shield, but you're losing on Major Heroism from Pearls this way (or have to run Trample). You can also keep it if you're weaving with your Igneous Weapons active. Mountain Giant - I guess ROJO healer can OB on the boss whilst just proccing their sets. But why, when you can run Ele Sus and Blockade of Storms?

Overall, it's better than before for sure. But that's obvious, that devs focused their efforts on DK DDs, not on tanks and healers - lack of synergy between the skill lines proves it. Both tanks and healers need some love.

Shout out to Healer's Haven for making tests on the targeting of the skills.

Molten Whip (& Flame lash) buffs should only apply to DK skills. Or at the least apply to other class skills at a reduced capacity.

Firstly, thank you for the changes that have been made already! The Dragonknight is definitely in a better spot now (for PvE DPS at least). Sadly, my PTS was a bit laggy which made it a bit hard to test the new changes. I did end up with 161K DPS on a Molten Whip build whereas I did 138K DPS on the same build in the first week of the PTS, though, so that's great to see.

After having tested the changes for a bit my feedback is roughly the same as before, though multiple things have been addressed already (thank you for that!).

Whip builds vs. Engulfing Dragonfire builds
Pure DK's with Engulfing Dragonfire still seem to parse slightly higher than builds that use either morph of Lava Whip as a spammable, even though Engulfing Dragonfire builds have an easier rotation, better sustain and more AoE damage (since Whip builds use Huntsman's Warmask instead of Velothi). Hence, Whip builds should deal noticeably more single target damage in my opinion.

However, even if I'd like to see Whip builds be better than Engulfing Dragonfire builds in single target scenarios, I'm personally not that fond of disabling Molten Whip's buff when Engulfing is slotted on either bar from a design/mechanical perspective. I think I'd prefer it if Engulfing Dragonfire would be nerfed but could profit from Molten Whip's buff instead (especially since Flame Lash's buff does work with Engulfing at the moment).

Heat Shock
I still think that it would be good for the DK if Heat Shock could either gain more stacks or if its value was increased, resulting in a value that's similar to the current Stone Giant’s Stagger. It would make the Earthen Heart skill line more beneficial for group content and it would help DK builds that use Magma Fist as a spammable too.

Searing Strike and Disintegrating Dragonfire
It's great to see that you've buffed Disintegrating Dragonfire and Searing Strike, but it would be nice if they ticked once every seconds so that they'd work better with the Runecarver's Blaze set.

Burning Talons could probably use a buff
I think that Burning Talons could use a buff too. Since Engulfing Dragonfire builds don't bother with short DoTs, it would be a small buff for DKs that use Magma Fist and/or either morph of Whip as a spammable. Having a really good AoE dot would also help Whip builds in AoE scenarios, so that would be a nice bonus too.

Besides, Draconic Power seems to be the least useful skill line for subclass DK PvE DPS builds that optimize for single target damage at the moment because it can be replaced with Assassination (until the Nightblade is reworked, at least). So buffing Burning Talons would help the skill line be a little more attractive in general. And even though I might be asking for too much right now, maybe the Burnished Scales passive - which currently only increases the amount of damage you block - could even get a second effect that buffs DPS?

I did 179K DPS with Assassination instead of Draconic Power, but have seen 180K+ parses with similar setups on Skinny's discord.

Blessing at the Peak
It’s great that you’ve added the Critical Damage to a passive, which a lot of players were asking for. I also really like that the passive also procs off dealing damage with an Earthen Heart skill right now. It would be nice if it would benefit Critical Healing too, however.

Shifting Standard/Standard of Might
It goes without saying that quite a few PvE damage dealers would like to be able to use Standard in their setups, but neither morph is good for DPS right now. Even though I personally think that the Ardent Flame skill line is in a pretty good spot right now, I do like the idea of making Standard empower Lava Whip in some way (similar to how Take Flight buffs Engulfing Dragonfire).

Whip in general
I really like that you've added the damage done to monsters buff to Flame Lash as well, which bridges the gap between that morph and Molten Whip. It seems like setups with Molten Whip still parse higher, as they should considering Flame Lash has other benefits, but Flame Lash is in a good spot now too. I suppose it would be nice to make the cost of Flame Lash depend on your Highest Max Resource so that Stamina builds can use it as a spammable as well, though.

If both Lava Whip morphs end up giving a 15% damage done to monsters buff, a part of me does wonder if that effect could be added to a passive such as A Soul Ablaze instead..? It would be beneficial for players that like to use for example weapon spammables without having to slot Molten Whip for its passive buff. But I'm admittedly nitpicking right now.

I'm just popping in to say that I like the mechanical changes to Molten Weapons, but I'm not going to use this skill if it replaces my weapons. The weapon effect looks cool, but I chose my weapon outfits specifically for each character.

Can Talons be 7m radius? The 6m is too small even on Vengeance.

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Now that "melee" range is 7m there really isn't a reason/excuse for any abilities to have <7 meter radii anymore.

Which definitely includes Talons.

And Mass Hysteria.

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Now that "melee" range is 7m there really isn't a reason/excuse for any abilities to have <7 meter radii anymore.

Which definitely includes Talons.

And Mass Hysteria.

and arctic blast

and Boundless Storm

Great catch that most people associate Avalanche with ice and snow and renaming to Landslide was the right call.
Please also rename the following:

• The Storm Voice - sounds like a Sorc ability to the uninitiated, and in the lore Dragonknights are not wielders of the Thu'um, so the name is a poor choice doubly so. It goes against your own lore, ZOS. You are making Gabrielle Benele look like an incompetent fool!
• Protect the Brood - Dragons, the theme that Dragonknights are trying to evoke despite not formally being connected to them, don't have children. Dragons are timeless divine creatures that do not reproduce. It's the reason all our little dragon pets are actually illusion imps casting the illusion of a tiny dragon. There is no brood to protect.
• Corrosive Armor - the word "corrosive" is usually referred to in the context of acids, or generally in relation to solutions. Since the ability no longer deals poison damage it's thematic connection to acid is gone. The image of heat causing surrounding targets to melt is not corrosion. I've made the suggestion Incandescent Armor before, and it's still my favorite, especially after watching a video of a 30k Watt incandescent lightbulb melting and burning things in its proximity just from the intensity of the light alone. But there are plenty of good alternatives too. Erosive Armor is probably a bad choice though because it invites puns. Not a huge deal, but then again neither was Avalanche.
• Blood of the Green Dragon/Blood of the Elder Dragon - it's just too long. Green Dragon Blood and Elder Dragon Blood is much shorter respectively and will be what people will call these abilities anyway. Also I know what an Elder Dragon is, but what is a "Green Dragon"? What makes them so special? You can understand Green Dragon Blood as the green referring to either the dragon or the blood, introducing some fun ambiguity that gets the imagination going. Not a huge deal either, but the shorter name is just better.

Not gonna lie, I feel like I'm being trolled by the developers if they rename Avalanche even though it actually can refer to both rockslides and snowslides but they don't rename two passives that are just straight up going against their own established lore.
So I guess I'll just put this here again. And maybe I'll make an extra thread for more visibility, because at this point I'm not sure what to do anymore. Can't wait for more misconceptions to spread if this goes live. Like, are we meant to understand this as a retcon? Are Dragonknights Dragonborn now? Or Tongues? Do dragons lay eggs now?