PTS Update 49 - Feedback Thread for Combat Refresh: Dragonknight

BardokRedSnow · February 5

I dont agree with the storm voice bit on dragon knight, while yes they derive their power from the akaviri art, the akaviri art is also derived from the thu'um via dragons. Its made in mimicry or inspiration of the thu'um. So even if it isn't literally the thu'um in full, it is still tonal architecture and an "echo" pun intended of the thu'um, which as a Nord fan who likes to rp I can thu'um, I greatly appreciate the tie in and acknowledgement lol.

Lord_Hev · February 5

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BasP wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

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

And Growing Swarm (the tiny 5m radius doesn't really fit the skill's name).

And Veil of Blades

Darkdex · February 5

Reposted from my response to a thread on DK flame Lash passive effect:

Why can't the passive effect be either:

Increasing in strength as more DK skill lines are equipped by the character.
Only available if you have 2 or 3 DK skill lines equipped.

We don't need more "Let me change base class and still use the same subclassing combo since it's optimal". This is AGAINST the objective of increasing the power level of base classes while maintaining subclassing in check.

This is going to end in situations where all DDs in group are running basically the same setup and there is no freedom on the base class selection. For example, my favorite character is base X and my group was organized around one of the skill lines of this X class, thus i can use my fav char no problem. With this change, even if the group setup is still the same, the existence passive effects like this one that become "the best choice" only have the effect of forcing the change of the character (base class) while playing the same stuff. How is this going to improve the experience even for the people that enjoy subclassing? It adds a (in essence) void restriction to subclassing instead of an incentive to pure-class play.

ZhuJiuyin · February 6

Lord_Hev wrote: »

.

BasP wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

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

And Growing Swarm (the tiny 5m radius doesn't really fit the skill's name).

And Veil of Blades

And Mages' Fury、Volatile Familiar、Daedric Curse、Daedric Tomb are all tiny 5m radius
Basically, the radius of most Sorc skills has not been updated to the most recent 7m range.

A10CCZ · February 6

The nerfing of Engulfing Dragonfire is quite too much , it was already weaker than fatecarver with shorter range.

ceruulean · February 6

The easiest way to balance would be to restrict the ability to purchase/morph certain skills unless you have the prerequisite lines equipped. Kinda like a pseudo skill tree. This way, we avoid skill bloat with "does +X damage to monsters if you have DK abilities" and degrading the servers more. I don't think having 3 paragraph skill descriptions is a good thing.

Iriidius · February 7

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

I remain confused about the intent with the changes to stamina morphs, stamina-based elemental damage, and the plans for other classes going forward.

So DKs lost Poison Damage. That's not great IMO, as DKs were the only way to create a dedicated poison build. But alright, change is nothing new in ESO, and the flame stuff we got is admittedly cool. I'm mainly worried about the implications.

a) Why can't DKs have any stamina-aligned element (Physical, Bleed, Poison, Disease)? Why limit us to only a magical element, when every class for close to a decade has had at least one magical (Magical, Fire, Ice, Shock) and one physical (Physical, Bleed, Poison, Disease) element?
b) Does this mean other classes will have only one (1) element as well? And if not, why are DKs especially limited in this regard?
c) What's the in-world/lore rationale for Fire element skills costing Stamina in some cases? Is this particular to Dragonknights and their Akaviri traditions (kiai), or can we expect similar changes to other classes? It clearly breaks with the rules established a long time ago.
d) What is the source of power / power fantasy for Stamina DKs? You used those terms in the developer deep dive about the class changes. Are we just assumed to use Fire skills for whatever reason, or do you not even think in terms of Magicka vs Stamina because of hybridization? I could see a weapon-reliant DK focusing on Molten Weapons, but at present that skill is too weak to carry a whole fantasy.

I feel I really need a "develeoper comment" on this matter. Losing a whole "wing" to the Dragonknight skill tree is not nothing, as a Stamina DK I'm struggling to see an immersive future for this character, and I already worry for the other classes.
Feels like a rollback before Stamina morphs were introduced and every class was a mage. Yes, I remember Elder Staves Online.

These days, concepts like Stamina Dragonknight and Stamina Sorcerer are anachronisms that the game has long-ago passed-by via hybridization.

There are simply Dragonknights and Sorcerers now and you use whatever skills that you want to use not whatever skills randomly happen to scale with your primary resource.

You might have your own headcanon about your character but those distinctions aren't officially supported any longer.

Although some players say Hybridization turned stamina and magicka into one most meta builds after Hybridization were still mostly stamina or mostly magicka. Mag Sorc as a pre mag spec was meta for 20 month before subclassing and Sorcerers with dizzy swing, crystal weapon or master dw were stam except some of them using daedric curse.
Mag DK und Magplar dominated first 2 updates after Hybridization and magblade the following.
And I still saw pure dizzy stamDKs in pvp years after Hybridization, some not even using coag.
Subclassing took away stamDKs remaining viabilty when not even hybridDK was viable any more and DK rework will take away the option to build a stamDK and use it in uncompetitive content killing all what remains.

BasP · February 7

Even though we've already entered the last week of the PTS, I thought I'd leave some DK feedback one last time.

1. Please change the PvE bonus from Whip into a "Damage Done to Monsters" instead of a regular "Damage Done" buff again, like it apparently was in week 3, because the current implementation is a noticeable nerf compared to what we had before.

2. The following part is, admittedly, similar to my prior feedback, but I've added a couple of parses that will (hopefully) improve my argument. Please consider buffing Burning Talons, and possibly Disintegrating Dragonfire, because in its current state the Draconic Power skill line is underwhelming for PvE DPS setups that don't use Engulfing Dragonfire.

Even though I'm not a top parser and have seen parses with pure DK's that are a good bit higher, I'll take my own parse in which I used both Talons and Dragonfire as a baseline. I did 152K DPS (I did 161K DPS on the exact same build last week, though).

I also did some parses using other non-class DoTs with a longer duration instead of Burning Talons and/or Disintegrating Dragonfire, and my DPS was generally better or about the same each time. Of course critical hits as well as my weaving played a role too, but still, I think the numbers do show that especially Burning Talons is underperforming a bit right now.

With Fiery Contingency instead of Burning Talons my DPS increased to 158K.
With Carve instead of Burning Talons and Shifting Standard instead of Take Flight my DPS increased to 157K.
With Carve and Scalding Rune instead of Disintegrating Dragonfire and Talons I did 157K DPS as well
With just Carve instead of Burning Talons I did 156K DPS.
With Carve instead of Disintegrating Dragonfire I did 152K DPS
With Deadly Cloak and Carve instead of instead of Dragonfire and Talons I did 151K DPS

Fiery Contingency

Carve and Shifting Standard

Carve and Scalding Rune

Carve instead of Burning Talons

Carve instead of Disintegrating Dragonfire

Deadly Cloak and Carve

Now I'll be the first to admit that my uptime on Burning Talons wasn't perfect when I used it, but still, I believe its damage is a bit subpar. Why would I want to use such a short DoT in my rotation, making it a tad more difficult/involved, if using longer duration DoTs results in the same - or more - DPS?

The same goes for Disintegrating Dragonfire, albeit to a lesser extent. Its duration is a lot shorter than those non-class DoTs I used, so I personally feel that it should deal a bit more DPS than it currently does.

Ultimately, I feel like I'm not really incentivized to keep using Draconic Power on my DKs for PvE DPS in its current state. The active skills aren't spectacular and the Ultimate nor its passives are good enough to carry the skill line either. To put things into perspective; even with the Dark Magic skill line instead of Draconic Power I did 158K DPS (with a slightly simpler rotation to boot).

Dark Magic is currently seen as one of the worst skill lines for PvE DPS in the game, though, if we don't count skill lines with 0 DPS abilities such as Green Balance. So it would be nice if the refreshed Draconic Power would be a bit better for DPS than that skill line, in my opinion. It shouldn't be equal to e.g. the current Assassination skill line, of course, but I feel like some buffs for its active abilities would be great.

YandereGirlfriend · February 7

The current situation with the Combat Team not knowing the difference between the "To Monsters" and regular old "Damage Done" buckets is more important than it even appears on the surface with most recent parses.

Why? Because this misconception is literally embedded within the spreadsheet values that the devs use to determine set/passive/ability power!

It means that EVERYTHING that uses these values is either unintentionally weak or unintentionally powerful versus what the spreadsheet assumes. Everything is thrown into chaos immediately. Are Tide-Born and Velothi unintentionally overpowered? Or are abilities that provide buffs like Major Berserk actually underpowered? One of these cases is true and actions should be taken accordingly.

Moreover, though, it points to the fatal flaw that is the spreadsheet balancing. If the ratios and assumptions that are used to build the spreadsheet are flawed then EVERYTHING that proceeds from that document IS ALSO FLAWED.

We can see this clearly with the case of the DK but it is no less true for the case of 129 Health Recovery being seen as equivalently valuable to 657 Critical Chance. The spreadsheet grossly overestimates the fundamental value of Health Recovery as a stat and so literally everything that includes Health Recovery is dangerously underpowered.

Which should be yet more logs for the burning pyre that is the spreadsheet. The sooner that we cast down this false source of balance the better that the game will be over the long-term. I truly hope that the Combat Team learns lessons from this imbroglio and considers a better course.

GloatingSwine · February 7

The lack of common sense in what's useful and equivalent to what is pretty well exemplified in a passive that gives mildly increased passive health recovery at low health.

At low health you need health back now, not very slightly more than otherwise in two seconds. Two seconds is basically forever when you're one hit away from dead.

Passive health recovery in general is in this weird place where it's a nice to have when you don't have to worry about your health, but basically irrelevant if you do.

MXVIIDREAM · February 8

I’m really happy with the changes as of the LATEST update to them
Only real shame is that there’s no crit healing and crit damage to that new passive but otherwise super happy and excited for live

Personofsecrets · February 8

It's obviously way too much to ask that DK doesn't have stinkers.

xencthlu · February 9

Look, I don't want to be one of those people @'ing the comms team over every little thing, but this issue of resources is pretty serious and it'd be nice to know if the choices made here were intentional. Three out of thirty total possible dragon knight abilities cost purely stamina. If you slotted all three to use, your other 7 abilities would be magicka abilities that would average out to being about 3.7k magicka each. The average stamina dragon knight has 19k magicka and needs some amount of magicka for their whip spammable. And, you'll want to slot as many dragon knight abilities as possible because that's how pure classes are being empowered via passives like Fan the Flames and the Storm Voice.

Since Core of Flame and its morphs restore resources based on a percentage of your maximum value, it only grants a net gain of about 1k magicka for a stamina build. This is inadequate. It renders stamina dragon knights incapable of using most of the abilities in their kit without emptying their magicka and becoming unable to attack. Please either add more stamina morphs or, I think other people have been requesting quite reasonably, make several abilities cost whatever your largest resource pool is. Even just shifting Core of Flame to cost your highest resource would mean it refunds the average cost of one magicka ability per cast. Which would be miserable, but it would be better than the state of stamina dragon knights on the PTS now. You made inferno and its morphs, originally notable for being a very cheap ability so it wouldn't strain stamina builds, one of the most expensive abilities post-refresh, but it's no less critical to overall performance as it is on live.

I'd really like to take and use Wing Buffet and its morphs, too. There's just so many cool tools in the new Dragon Knight's kit I'd like to have the option of using.

As I've stated before, it's really only trial content where resource recovery is a total non-issue. That's a very small selection of gameplay. Are dragon knights intended to be able to support stamina builds post-refresh, or is the class intended to only support magicka builds? Is this intentional? Do you think that the dragon knight class fantasy doesn't include martial weapons? Going forward, should we anticipate other classes being refreshed in a way that may not support building for one of the two resource types?

Personofsecrets · February 10

xencthlu wrote: »

Look, I don't want to be one of those people @'ing the comms team over every little thing, but this issue of resources is pretty serious and it'd be nice to know if the choices made here were intentional. Three out of thirty total possible dragon knight abilities cost purely stamina. If you slotted all three to use, your other 7 abilities would be magicka abilities that would average out to being about 3.7k magicka each. The average stamina dragon knight has 19k magicka and needs some amount of magicka for their whip spammable. And, you'll want to slot as many dragon knight abilities as possible because that's how pure classes are being empowered via passives like Fan the Flames and the Storm Voice.

Since Core of Flame and its morphs restore resources based on a percentage of your maximum value, it only grants a net gain of about 1k magicka for a stamina build. This is inadequate. It renders stamina dragon knights incapable of using most of the abilities in their kit without emptying their magicka and becoming unable to attack. Please either add more stamina morphs or, I think other people have been requesting quite reasonably, make several abilities cost whatever your largest resource pool is. Even just shifting Core of Flame to cost its highest resource would mean it refunds the average cost of one magicka ability per cost. Which would be miserable, but it would be better than the state of stamina dragon knights on the PTS now. You made inferno and its morphs, originally notable for being a very cheap ability so it wouldn't strain stamina builds, one of the most expensive abilities post-refresh, but it's no less critical to overall performance as it is on live.

I'd really like to take and use Wing Buffet and its morphs, too. There's just so many cool tools in the new Dragon Knight's kit I'd like to have the option of using.

As I've stated before, it's really only trial content where resource recovery is a total non-issue. That's a very small selection of gameplay. Are dragon knights intended to be able to support stamina builds post-refresh, or is the class intended to only support magicka builds? Is this intentional? Do you think that the dragon knight class fantasy doesn't include martial weapons? Going forward, should we anticipate other classes being refreshed in a way that may not support building for one of the two resource types?

Helping Hands wept.

HarfnUA · February 11

I apologise in advance, but after reading the forum I still could not find an answer to the most important question. This concerns PvP content. Will the updated DK be comparable in effectiveness to builds with subclasses? Or is it just a remake of DK with its buff, which in the end won't solve the imbalance problem in PvP?
As everyone knows, at present, under the same conditions and equal player skill levels, a DK, like other pure class builds, has absolutely no chance of defeating a subclass build. Yes, there are players who can achieve some results with pure builds. But these same players achieve even greater results when using subclasses.
I know for sure that the DK has a major problem with dealing burst damage. Against weaker players, this might not be so noticeable, but beating a strong player without burst damage is nearly impossible. Skills with DOT damage have very high numbers, but in practice, just one Resolving Vigor makes this damage almost useless. Yes, there is Take Flight, but against strong players it hardly works. At best, 9 out of 10 attacks will be blocked. The same situation applies to Corrosive Armor against strong players. This ultimate can simply be kited. Moreover, because most meta builds use Streak, implementing DOT damage and spamming Molten Whip is almost impossible. As soon as a skilled opponent feels excessive pressure, they simply use Streak. Not to mention the huge disparity in damage against builds using Deep Fissure. While a pure DK uses DOTs, it takes 20k+ damage, and sometimes even more. Although the DK is quite a tanky class, in the current meta this unfortunately doesn't help much. A DK simply survives in battle against subclass builds 5-10 seconds longer. I sympathise with other players using pure builds, although there are almost no pure builds left. You can still try to play in duels, but in the Imperial City, in Cyrodiil and at the BG, playing as a pure class you are initially weaker than your opponents.

Perhaps some of the stronger players have already spent enough hours in PvP content. If you are reading this post, please answer the question. Is the new pure DK comparable to subclass builds, or is it just unplayable?

tomofhyrule · February 11

HarfnUA wrote: »

Is the new pure DK comparable to subclass builds, or is it just unplayable?

The big problem with trying to compare them as is is that Subclassing will always be OP compared to anything else while the respective overpowered lines haven’t been touched. For PvE, that’s Herald of the Tome (not fixed until winter 2027); for PvP, that’s Animal Companions and Storm Calling (addressed fall and winter 2026); and the big factor in both realms is Assassination (not fixed until summer 2027).

DK as is, unless they specifically make it OP, likely won’t be able to compare to the current meta. The idea of putting a “if you are a DK” on whip is an inelegant way to try to address that, but it only shifts the imbalance. To fix the mess subclassing created, we need to get each of the problematic lines fixed, so it’ll take a while.

At least some of the major PvP lines will be addressed in 2026. And as more and more Classes get their refreshes, it should make their lines more even than they were, so by the end there will be more of a reason to build the way that you like instead of just finding the three mathematically best lines and going with it.

HarfnUA · February 13

Thank you for explaining the developers' idea.
But now I have a very interesting question about the DK. It turns out that in patch 49 all talent trees of the DK will be balanced, and there will no longer be the strongest or weakest talent tree. All meta subclass builds based on the DK will be weakened. Right now I'm really starting to worry about the future of the DK. In patch 49 we will get a strengthened pure DK, but it will still be weaker than the meta subclass builds. And we will also get nerfed meta builds based on the DK using subclasses. In the end, it’s just a DK nerf.
Next will be the Warden. All meta subclass builds will be redesigned from the most common Main class+Warden+NB to Main class+Necromancer+Sorcerer. Of course, there may be other meta build options, but I usually come across these two options.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

HarfnUA wrote: »

Is the new pure DK comparable to subclass builds, or is it just unplayable?

The big problem with trying to compare them as is is that Subclassing will always be OP compared to anything else while the respective overpowered lines haven’t been touched. For PvE, that’s Herald of the Tome (not fixed until winter 2027); for PvP, that’s Animal Companions and Storm Calling (addressed fall and winter 2026); and the big factor in both realms is Assassination (not fixed until summer 2027).

DK as is, unless they specifically make it OP, likely won’t be able to compare to the current meta. The idea of putting a “if you are a DK” on whip is an inelegant way to try to address that, but it only shifts the imbalance. To fix the mess subclassing created, we need to get each of the problematic lines fixed, so it’ll take a while.

kojou · February 13

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

HalfDragoness wrote: »

GuardianV wrote: »

If I could only change one thing, it would be how DragonKnight skills scale with a Lightning Staff compared to a Flame Staff (with Ancient Knowledge passive). The only 2 DragonKnight skill morphs that scale from a flame staff being equipped will be Shifting Standard and Corrosive Armor. There are 18 other DragonKnight skills that scale completely from the 12% damage boost a Lightning Staff gives to Direct and Channel damage. Even if a flame staff buffs burning by 12% it's not worth the loss to run a flame staff just for that, and it feels like a miss that with all the fire damage in this class, a Flame Staff is the worse option.

The solution may not even be in changing the DK skills, but with moving boosting channel damage from the lightning staff to the flame staff as outside of the DK so many other DOT skills are considered channels and buffed by the Lightning staff. (a channel beam that deals direct damage would them be buffed by both, offering more build diversity)

I like this because as a MagDK main when I wanna go full fire it feels stupid to have to slot a lightning staff for better fire damage.

I feel like this would have extremely negative consequences for Heavy Attack builds.

The better and simpler solution, IMO, is to have the Staves provide +elemental damage done to their respective elements.

That has the benefit of also making clear intuitive sense to the player.

I agree with the sentiment towards the loss of the flame staff for a DK’s primary weapon. It always felt weird to have to use a shock staff as a fire mage. It’s probably too late to do anything, but I like the idea of have a flame staff buff flame damage as part of the destruction staff passives. That would also take care of the issue that a flame staff does not buff its own light attacks, which takes away from the use of a flame staff as a primary weapon. Maybe the passive could be rewritten as Flame Damage and Damage over time skills… one could only hope.

Nemesis7884 · February 14

A10CCZ wrote: »

The nerfing of Engulfing Dragonfire is quite too much , it was already weaker than fatecarver with shorter range.

agreed, if it should be a beam alternative it needs to be a true alternative in damage, functionality and mobility