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PTS Update 49 - Feedback Thread for Classes & Abilities

  • YandereGirlfriend
    YandereGirlfriend
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    With all of the drama over Onslaught this cycle, it is easy to forget that the other morph, Berserker Rage, is effectively a dead morph and is never used in either PvE or PvP. It also has several dead passives (cough Follow-Up and Battle Rush cough).

    Can we perhaps get some better utility for Two-Handed in PvE? I feel like this weapon has been colonized by PvP and that the devs have seemingly canonized that colonization.

    Followup really needs to give its bonus after each two handed skill use or something. Nobody in pve or pvp is using 2h heavy attacks in combos. I doubt the 10% to 2h damage makes up for doing a fully charged heavy attack.

    Id say battle rush is very useful, maybe not for boss parse combat, but sustain wise during pvp and mob groups.

    Forceful i always felt could be something else entirely that fits more of a brawler meathead role. I always thought they should have had a bonus like 8% lifesteal on 2h skills or something more traditional to brawler playstyles. Or even applying minor lifesteal on enemies hit.

    IDK im still bothered that someone at zos thought offbalance was better than a telegraphed stun

    Lifesteal (the general concept rather than the specific debuff) would be a fantastic and very thematically on-brand effect. I feel like you could either add that as a passive or to something like the base morph of Momentum.

    Follow-Up is so crazy because it was already only situationally useful in PvP (and completely dead for PvE) before they inexplicably decided to nerf it into literal draugr dust several patches ago. Compared to like Eagle Eye or Accuracy from the Bow line and it is clear that one of these passives is not like the others. Eagle Eye and Accuracy single-handedly raise Bow from the Hall of the Dead back into PvE respectability and Two-Handed absolutely deserves the same treatment.

    For Battle Rush... we already have two sustain passives in this line hogging-up spreadsheet value for better effects. If they wanted to differentiate Two-Handed from the sustain passives of the other skills they should either deepen the skill discount from Balanced Blade to something like 30% and then do something more interesting with Battle Rush OR strengthen Battle Rush and do something more interesting with Balanced Blade (the name of which would seem to connote Crit Chance, at least IMO).

    My preference would probably be to double-down on the Balanced Blade discount and then do something damage-oriented for Battle Rush, like stacking %DamageDone or %CritChance per recent kill or something.
    Edited by YandereGirlfriend on February 2, 2026 11:18PM
  • ArctosCethlenn
    ArctosCethlenn
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    jrhkedukrndu.png
    Kinda feel like this should be crit damage and healing both as others have said, since dk right now doesn't really have any healer-specific passives.
  • ceruulean
    ceruulean
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    • Added different damage sounds for the three core Two Handed archetypes – Maul, Greatsword, and Battle Axe – to Reverse Slash and its morphs.
    • Fixed various audio issues for Berserker Strike, Cleave, Critical Charge, Reverse Slash, Momentum, and Uppercut.

    I am happy the team made these changes for v11.3.3! There is one last request with 1 skill and greatsword audio. There is an annoying click/pop sound when you cast Cleave with a greatsword. This click is not present when using a maul or greataxe. I've included a recording with Audacity to show what I mean:

    oaTqEI4.png

    Cleave is a common spammable used by many players, so if you have a greatsword, the clicking sounds awful on repeat. It is only present when hitting a target. If you cast Cleave by yourself, it sounds fine. So maybe there's an issue with sound blending.
    Edited by ceruulean on February 3, 2026 12:01AM
  • MincMincMinc
    MincMincMinc
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    With all of the drama over Onslaught this cycle, it is easy to forget that the other morph, Berserker Rage, is effectively a dead morph and is never used in either PvE or PvP. It also has several dead passives (cough Follow-Up and Battle Rush cough).

    Can we perhaps get some better utility for Two-Handed in PvE? I feel like this weapon has been colonized by PvP and that the devs have seemingly canonized that colonization.

    Followup really needs to give its bonus after each two handed skill use or something. Nobody in pve or pvp is using 2h heavy attacks in combos. I doubt the 10% to 2h damage makes up for doing a fully charged heavy attack.

    Id say battle rush is very useful, maybe not for boss parse combat, but sustain wise during pvp and mob groups.

    Forceful i always felt could be something else entirely that fits more of a brawler meathead role. I always thought they should have had a bonus like 8% lifesteal on 2h skills or something more traditional to brawler playstyles. Or even applying minor lifesteal on enemies hit.

    IDK im still bothered that someone at zos thought offbalance was better than a telegraphed stun

    Lifesteal (the general concept rather than the specific debuff) would be a fantastic and very thematically on-brand effect. I feel like you could either add that as a passive or to something like the base morph of Momentum.

    Follow-Up is so crazy because it was already only situationally useful in PvP (and completely dead for PvE) before they inexplicably decided to nerf it into literal draugr dust several patches ago. Compared to like Eagle Eye or Accuracy from the Bow line and it is clear that one of these passives is not like the others. Eagle Eye and Accuracy single-handedly raise Bow from the Hall of the Dead back into PvE respectability and Two-Handed absolutely deserves the same treatment.

    For Battle Rush... we already have two sustain passives in this line hogging-up spreadsheet value for better effects. If they wanted to differentiate Two-Handed from the sustain passives of the other skills they should either deepen the skill discount from Balanced Blade to something like 30% and then do something more interesting with Battle Rush OR strengthen Battle Rush and do something more interesting with Balanced Blade (the name of which would seem to connote Crit Chance, at least IMO).

    My preference would probably be to double-down on the Balanced Blade discount and then do something damage-oriented for Battle Rush, like stacking %DamageDone or %CritChance per recent kill or something.

    Yeah it wouldn't be bad for 2h to get more damage I suppose. Right now it is fairly weak if you compare it up against things like surprise attack or really any of the assassination skills.

    Even something like a built in amplitude kinda reverse execute. Crit doesnt seem to it for me since I would think dual wield or bow should be more crit oriented. I always think 2h as being more brawler meathead type hard hits. Crit gameplay doesnt feel right because randomly you do no damage. Again why current dizzy feels so bad in pvp, half the time you dont even see their healthbars move, where old dizzy had almost 40% more tooltip hitting the enemy with a knockup. Id rather not have a stun or offbalance at all and get my damage back to what it should be for using a cast time.
    I only use insightful
  • MincMincMinc
    MincMincMinc
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    Also I am just going to repost my recent two handed testing here for week 4 Sadly I imagine alot of this will hit live.

    Animation VFX summary

    I tested all the skills on all three weapons. The sound effect is tied to the motif. It was very hard to tell because the volume of the axe and maul is so quiet some of the skills I cant even hear a noise playing.

    Especially on reverse slice, the sound effect does not even seem to line up at all. Before you hit the target you hear a woosh noise........then your sword passes the target and swings behind you and then you hear a thud noise. The timing NEEDS to be revisited. The maul sound effect for reverse slice does not seem to even be working. I am not joking when I say I can make more noise by swinging a sheet of paper at my desk. Reverse slice sounds like you are whipping a broom around not hitting anything. This is an execute skill where you are going to be having crazy moments closing out kills. This should not sound like a weak swipe with a kitchen knife or simply have no sound effect at all.
    - To complain further the character animation just looks like a generic light or heavy attack swing. I would rather go back to the previous spin around over the head animation that looks like you are actually going for a killing blow rather than a generic swipe that's indistinguishable.

    Uppercut fails to have a deep thud noise at the point of impact, so again it just seems like your character is randomly swinging around with some woosh noise happening. This may be because the woosh noise is so loud compared to the thud noise of the weapons. It doesn't help that the woosh happens before the perceived hit. Again the maul sound effect doesn't even seem to be working for this or its too quiet. Strangely i was finding that the skill seems fine when light attack weaving. If you don't light attack weave it seems really off.

    Whoever worked on critical charge did a fantastic job though. This is a great example of how a 2h skill should feel. (now only if the damage was worth using it.....)

    Carve feels meaty enough I would call it fine.

    Rally, the sound effect is too delayed. Maybe it needs to be quicker by 0.1s otherwise its fine, the character animation looks cool with the sword twirl

    Onslaught still seems pretty weak for what is supposed to be an ultimate. Honestly crit charge feels way more like an insane ultimate quality animation.

    Combat/build wise:

    uppercut and morphs pale in comparison to other spammables that not only offer more damage and buffs, but they also offer more stackable class passives. 2h simply does not have those, so you must compensate. I would rather see dizzy lose its offbalance for a stackable buff. Each hit of dizzy gains 10% and your third will end up doing 30% damage and a stun. Offbalance is a terrible mechanic that is poorly understood by the community. Not to mention all of its design holes like how medium attacks that are invisible from any enemy within 28m animation canceling will trigger the stun.

    Crititcal rush - simply does not do enough damage to be justified slotting. I am better off slotting a movement buff skill like Race against time and using a higher damage skill while running the distance.

    Carve/brawler this is mostly fine, but will really only see use because of how master 2h works as counter zerg bombing. Otherwise it does not have enough damage or benefit.

    Reverse slice and executioner is close to the right damage, but again they are the lesser option compared to inclass skills like impale which gets bonus effects and the class passives stacking/triggering.

    Rally is the worst burst heal, it is on a cooldown that is less than most burst rotations......like merciless resolve shooting 10k of my healthbar every 5s. It is not worth slotting for a once every blue moon heal. The skill needs more benefits or better buffs like minor mending over the duration to supplement your other heals to hold you over. Remember you used to have a strong hot on this skill last time it was really ever used.

    Onslaught, I have said it enough that this skill should have stayed its original ult return. The pen and crit were always too strong and needed to be reigned in. I would have made the ult return come back and for every kill achieved with the ult you would gain 5k pen and 20% crit chance. This way you actually go on an onslaught. The ult cost would probably be reduced as well since there is a good chance you fail the combo to close out kills.

    Berserkers could probably get a pve buff tied to it, im sure you could leave the pvp functionality of the resists and immunity while still making some other PVE benefit.

    The followup passive should give the bonus after each 2h skill used. Nobody in pve or pvp can or will complete heavy attacks in a damage rotation. They will almost always get you killed or waste dps time.

    battlerush and balance blade both give sustain passives. To fit the brawler playstyle perhaps battelrush should give something like lifesteal after a kill or against low health enemies with 2h skills. Or even a growing lifesteal that goes up to 30% on enemies under 25%hp or something with 2h skill damage.
    Edited by MincMincMinc on February 3, 2026 1:45AM
    I only use insightful
  • Erickson9610
    Erickson9610
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    I think the "while you are a Dragonknight" conditions do nothing to help Pureclasses, because you're still allowed to Subclass your other Dragonknight skill lines away.

    What it's doing instead is giving more incentive to playing a different core Class, something that Class Sets (and their motifs) and Class Masteries were already doing.


    To give an example, I don't think people will switch away from Warden or Arcanist as their core Class because of their Scribing Class Mastery. I don't think those players would want to use the Dragonknight skills that have "while you are a Dragonknight" conditions on them. Maybe if every skill line had "while you are a <Class>" conditions, players would go back to using Pureclass builds to stay optimal — but that's essentially restricting the freedom that Subclassing gives you.

    I think a better implementation would be something like how Werewolf's "Terrified" effect works. Ferocious Roar applies a debuff to enemies that causes Piercing Howl to deal extra damage to them. Now move Ferocious Roar into a separate skill line from Piercing Howl, and that essentially encourages you to use both skill lines to be the most optimal for that build, while still allowing you to use either skill line individually without the bonus.


    In other words, I think "while you are a <Class>" restrictions are only helping core Classes (does nothing to help Pureclassing so long as core Classes are still allowed to Subclass) while making skills in separate skill lines buff one another would encourage people to use those skill lines together, helping Pureclasses.
    PC/NA — Lone Werewolf, the EP Templar Werewolf

    Werewolf Should be Allowed to Sneak
    Please give us Werewolf Skill Styles (for customizing our fur color), Grimoires/Scribing skills (to fill in the holes in our builds), and Companions (to transform with).
  • ZhuJiuyin
    ZhuJiuyin
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    What it's doing instead is giving more incentive to playing a different core Class, something that Class Sets (and their motifs) and Class Masteries were already doing.

    However, in PvE, almost no one uses Class Sets and Class Masteries, so it doesn't encourage players to choose different core classes.

    I don't support the current "while you are a certain class" mechanism because its implication is a denial of subclass functionality.But ,I don't oppose it either, because it could indeed allow the same skill line combination to perform different functions, thus increasing build diversity.

    In the short term, "while you are a certain class" does encourage players to choose a specific class as their core. In the long term, we won't know whether this restriction needs to be changed until all classes are refreshed.

    "是燭九陰,是燭龍。"──by "The Classic of Mountains and Seas "English is not my first language,If something is ambiguous, rude due to context and translation issues, etc., please remind me, thanks.
  • decairn
    decairn
    PVP - The Soul Harvest skill is overpowered, specifically the 10 ult on kill element to it. With the scribing and current bombing meta, we see players loading Soul Harvest on one bar, and Suppression Field on another. Bombs happen, players are getting to 300 ult or more within 12 seconds and rinse/repeat the negate/bomb on cooldown. It's wasn't really a problem before scribing and multi-class but now the other abilities make this too-good-to-not-have. At a minimum change the ultimate gain to ONLY occur if the player got the killing blow instead of just registering a kill, and alternatively also remove the either-bar portion of the proc. The skill hasn't changed since U28 that I can see, but the last year or so other changes have pushed it to over-powered state.
    Edited by decairn on February 5, 2026 3:59PM
  • Jolipinator
    Jolipinator
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    I like all the new animations for the Two Handed skills except for Reverse Slash. While the new animation is nice it is too different from the old one. The current one has such a great feeling of impact, slamming our heavy weapon down onto an enemy, pretty much exactly like those test your strength games at fairgrounds.

    The new one is just a cross body slash. It doesn't fit the idea of the skill to me. I always like choosing Reverse Slice, so seeing the dust clouds kick up and knowing I am hurting nearby enemies added to the impact of this skill.

    I particularly like the rushing sensation applied to Critical Charge. I hope other leap/blink abilities get something similar in the future.
    PS5 EU.
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