U50 Feedback Thread for Class Mastery

ZOS_Kevin · April 13

This is the official feedback thread for the new Class Mastery System. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

Did Class Mastery help in providing a meaningful boost to power for playing as a solo class?
Do you feel this system helps in allowing for more player agency in a post subclassing play environment?
What are the things you like about Class Mastery?
What places do you think could use improvement with Class Mastery?
Any other general thoughts around Class Mastery?

Malyore · April 13

From a glance (console players don't have access to PTS) these aren't going to be strong enough on the non-refreshed classes to make me stop multiclassing. They do not fill enough gaps.
Based on the dragonknight U49 though, I am still confident for the refreshes themselves, when they happen.

But as it is with these masteries, I see no reason for me to drop the penetration, aoe damage, crit dmg/healing boost, etc. from multiclassing arcanists Herald of the Tome for me to then start having to use scribed skills as my spammables on my non-pet sorcerer.
Not to mention my other multiclassed line is dragonknights Ardent Flame, which also brings my character a ton of named buffs and other benefits.

I love the u49 dragonknight and am very excited for future refreshes, but these masteries alone do not help reach the refresh level. I can't say whether the refresh+mastery combo meets multiclassing standards. But once the refresh hits the sorcerer I will probably switch to monoclassing. Until then, these masteries are not enough.

I appreciate the direction ZOS is trying to take, to lift up others into multiclassing standards. That is much more appreciated than a bunch of nerfs, so thank you for that!

whteva4eva · April 13

Class Mastery Feedback from Arcanist Healer Perspective

1. Did Class Mastery help in providing a meaningful boost to power for playing as a solo class?

For Arcanist healers specifically, Class Mastery currently does not provide a meaningful boost to power.

Other classes received clear support-oriented power increases, such as Weapon and Spell Damage buffs, Resource and ultimate generation, & Major buff applications (Major Berserk, Major Brittle, etc.)

However, Arcanist healers received only Ink Scribe’s Verve, which generates a Crux after healing or overhealing 75,000 Health in combat. When triggered, the passive only generates Crux, which currently has limited value for healer-focused builds.

Because of this, Class Mastery does not feel like a meaningful power increase for Arcanist healers.

2. Do you feel this system helps in allowing for more player agency in a post subclassing play environment?

For Arcanist healers, the system currently does not increase player agency in a meaningful way. One of the core mechanics of the Arcanist identity is Crux generation and consumption, but healers currently have very limited ways to meaningfully spend Crux to benefit group utility. Many Arcanist healer builds generate Crux passively through abilities like Chakram of Destiny, but there is little incentive or reward for consuming Crux in support-focused gameplay.

Because of this, Arcanist healers do not gain new decision-making opportunities or playstyle variety from Class Mastery.

3. What are the things you like about Class Mastery?

The Class Mastery system is a great idea overall, especially as a way to reward players who choose to remain pure class after subclassing is introduced. It’s great to see new build diversity, class identity reinforcement, and role-specific enhancements for different classes. Many classes received passives that reinforce their class identity, particularly in support roles, which is very exciting.

4. What places do you think could use improvement with Class Mastery?

1. No meaningful way to spend Crux as a healer

Arcanist healers currently lack meaningful Crux consumption mechanics that benefit group support.

It would be great to see:

Group support effects/buffs tied to Crux generation/consumption

This would help reinforce the Arcanist support identity and make Crux more relevant for healers.

2. Arcanist healing heavily relies on shielding

Arcanist healers primarily support through damage shields, but Ink Scribe’s Verve only generates Crux through healing or overhealing. Because shielding is a major part of Arcanist healing identity, it would be helpful if shielding counted towards the Crux generation of the class mastery passive.

This would better align Class Mastery with how Arcanist healers actually function.

3. Lack of group utility compared to other classes

Many other classes received clear group utility from Class Mastery passives:

Templar — Group Weapon/Spell Damage
Warden — Major Brittle / Heroism
Dragonknight — Major Berserk / Protection
Sorcerer — Group shields and unique damage buffs
Nightblade — Group resources and ultimate generation

Currently, Arcanist does not provide meaningful group utility through Class Mastery passives. This makes it harder for Arcanist healers to justify a support slot in group content compared to other classes, especially whenever Zenas' Empowering Disc lost its 12-person target cap.

4. Any other general thoughts around Class Mastery?

Overall, the Class Mastery system is a great addition and has strong potential. However, Arcanist healers currently feel underserved compared to other classes with the current class mastery passives and state of Crux generation/consumption for Arcanist healers.

Summary

Arcanist healers currently:

Lack meaningful Crux consumption options
Provide no meaningful group utility through Class Mastery
Rely heavily on shielding, which is not reflected in Ink Scribe's Verve

Adding Crux-based support mechanics or group buffs would help Arcanist healers feel more competitive and aligned with their class identity.

Dracane · April 13

Naturally any buff to a pure class is by definition an improvement, just like gaining 3% spell damage would be one. Yet is 3% spell damage a difference large enough to have impact? That is the greater query.

These mastery passives needed to be massive indeed if they were supposed to meaningfully tip the balance between pure classing and sub classing. Especially bearing in mind we can but choose two. In most cases you must choose between either damage and tankiness, or damage and sustain, or tankiness and sustain. Subclasses do not have to make that choice. They can cover all 3 in very powerful ways.

Class Mastery fails at this because we can only choose 2 talents, and while yes, some sound strong on first glance, they are actually too insignificant once you consider the powerful passive effects subclasses get from passives and passive skill effects. Not to mention the unfair skill combinations this allows. (The infamous Shalks into Incap and Spec Bow for example)

For Dragonknight, I would be so bold to say that the masteries are probably okay, just because Dragonknight is already at least competitive as a pure class. For any other class though, it's not enough until their own remasters.

From the Sorcerer perspective I like and appreciate the general direction or idea behind the passives. With Font of Power we try to reward the OG magicka stack, and grant % bonuses based on it. The idea is fine, but the values are not. (And this is true for many other class masteries I have seen) Magicka stacking has become unattractive long ago, so requiring 1750 magicka for 1% of spell damage is a steep ask. Most builds have barely above 30k without sabotaging their damage/build in other places. The original 1500 was already quite crazy.

And the same is true for Conservation of Energy; the primary sustain passive of this line-up. 2% of magicka and stamina is 660 magicka and 280 stamina refund for the average pve and pvp setup, or reversed for a stamina build. In a pre-sub classing world I would have deemed this a wonderful blessing. But in a world where Heart of Flame exists? Where various sustain skills and passives can be stacked from multiple classes?

These are just two examples, and I am sure other classes will have their own nits to pick. To be honest, I find the other 3 passives so weak that I don't even know what to say other than making them stronger.
Thank you so much for doing this. I am simply glad this is happening at all. My feedback would be that these passives are good in theory, but the values are too nerfed or careful, and my 2nd feedback is that I don't even want to suffer for 2 more months before these come.

Estin · April 13

I only just read the patch notes, but I'm glad this system is coming into the game to help bring up pure classes to the level of subclassing. Some tweaks are definitely going to be needed, but so far they look rather good.

One thing that stood out for me is the change to Necro's Cycle of Death/Malevolent Promise. Even though the original was a WIP, it did give the impression that it would work on enemy players. I do feel that this class passive should have the ability to mark players as well instead of just monsters. This would make Necro's siphons much easier to use in PvP, and would allow the detonating siphon explosion to hit the player its attached to rather than being a small aoe they can walk away from.

VinnyGambini · April 13

Did Class Mastery help in providing a meaningful boost to power for playing as a solo class?

Well, from a templar perspective, not really. Boost is not really meaningful.

Do you feel this system helps in allowing for more player agency in a post subclassing play environment?

Subclassing is still stronger

What are the things you like about Class Mastery?

Overall Idea is good, but the passives are too weak.

What places do you think could use improvement with Class Mastery?

So elephant in the room: Judgment’s Brand: This passive upgrades rank 2 of Burning Light to increase your damage done with Templar abilities by 1250 (625 against players) for 3.1 seconds after activating.

In PvE it increases jabs dmg by 3600 (1200x3), so very low increase to dps. In PvP it increase by only 900 (625*3*0,45 battle spirit) which is complete fail. Jabs are still not worth using.

Also Bright Harbinger: This passive upgrades rank 2 of Illuminate to grant the affected group members 300 Weapon and Spell Damage, increasing to 600 for you. - Why templar received 600, while warden got 1665? This is so unfair.

Any other general thoughts around Class Mastery?

Idea is good, but once more Judgment’s Brand passive was supposed to be 2000 dmg. So 2000 in PvE and 900 in PvP (battle spirit) you decided to nerf it in PvE by 40% and in PvP by 80%. 80%!

couriersix · April 13

Did Class Mastery help in providing a meaningful boost to power for playing as a solo class?

I noticed a boost in power, but it wasn't substantial enough. Playing on my necro DPS, I noticed a ~10k-20k loss in DPS by pure classing, as opposed to running something like Grave Lord/Assassination/Herald.

Do you feel this system helps in allowing for more player agency in a post subclassing play environment?

I think after tweaks and adjustments, yes. It wouldn't hurt to add a few more passive abilities to choose from, or the option to pick more than two.

What are the things you like about Class Mastery?

I like the idea behind it, but in it's current state, it's underwhelming.

What places do you think could use improvement with Class Mastery?

Better numbers, they can always be nerfed and adjusted with each classes rework. The ability to choose more than two. A few more additional passives, especially for DPS.

Any other general thoughts around Class Mastery?

It's a step in the right direction, but it needs more work.

Prionyx · April 13

They are too weak to make any difference. Please buff them and don't be afraid to make them OP, just make sure everyone has OP class mastery. If it's just mostly stats than there is no way it will make subclassing not viable whatsoever, it will still be mandatory for all kinds of supports(pvp/pve), but even if it will be overall less viable than subclassing... Is it really bad? Shouldn't have subcalssing been an *option*? Because at this point it's cleary not, gap between subclassing and pure classing is ridiculously high(exluding new DK, but even there subclassing is still overall better), if you want your build to be viable and competent you MUST subclass.

Was subclassing intended to completely destroy class and build variety and identity? Of course it wasn't, but it did. And now you have a chance to fix this to some degree, but laughable 7% crit damage passives(seriously tho what the hell? 15% would be too weak to make the difference in pvp, even 25% wouldn't be enough but you half those 15% against players? Doesn't make much sence in terms of pve either, arcanist(you know, the most overperforming class in pve) can have straight up 30% dmg passive and NB(you know, the most underperforming class in pve) couldn't even keep that poor 25%) are nowhere near enough for that. Please make them stronger and don't be afraid to make them too stroong as long as they are strong for every class.

I understand that they are meant to "stop gap measure between class reworks", but there is soo much time to wait for these reworks, we have to wait for almost 2 years to get all of them, and if these passives are released in current state it will not change anything at all, pure classing will still be underperforming and in no way competitive compared to subclassing.

Did Class Mastery help in providing a meaningful boost to power for playing as a solo class? - Not at all
Do you feel this system helps in allowing for more player agency in a post subclassing play environment? - If passives are buffed than yes, definitely
What are the things you like about Class Mastery? - What's not to like? Amazing idea and overall good realization, just make them stronger
What places do you think could use improvement with Class Mastery? It's overall good and doesn't need much changes, just make them stronger
Any other general thoughts around Class Mastery? - Not really but just want to express my gratitude for coming up with this idea

CameraBeardThePirate · April 13

Any other general thoughts around Class Mastery?

Why is the Necromancer passive Malevolent Promise restricted to non-player enemies?

It feels counterintuitive when Corpse Consumers struggle to be effective specifically in PvP due to their stationary nature. I was so excited to potentially gain an interesting DoT ability to use in PvP, only to realize that it would not work on Player Enemies.

Avran_Sylt · April 13

Nightblades Noturnal Inspiration in the patch notes is listed as up to once every 3 seconds, however it's 0.3s on the PTS. This allows for very rapid ult gain at high critical chance, especially with the Decisive Trait. An ult battery support for Cryptcannon, sets like War Machine, or even Decisive seem nice with it. If it triggers off of crit healing I can imagine it being very good for support ults. Seems overtuned, though if it were once every three seconds I wouldn't slot it.

An Eye for Exploitation seems like a standard pick for DPS/brawling.

I like how Above and Beyond opens buildcrafting up with the increased Critical damage threshold.

Cutthroat's Focus seems like it could be interesting for NB tanking with the damage increase for allies, though the 0.3s window seems punishingly small for such a short duration.

Share the Spoils seems very lackluster.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · April 13

I really hope that a parse over these class masteries is made by the team with a critical pvp focused eye prior to release.
Some of these are just wrong to add to a pvp environment which is already struggling with balance.

whteva4eva · April 13

Class Mastery Feedback from Necromancer Healer Perspective

1. Did Class Mastery help in providing a meaningful boost to power for playing as a solo class?

For Necromancer healers, Class Mastery currently does not provide a meaningful boost to power.

The only healer-oriented passive available is At the Precipice, which grants 2 Ultimate to an ally healed under 50% Health. While this fits thematically with Necromancer’s ultimate-focused identity, the implementation feels very limited in practice.

The main concern is the under 50% Health requirement is inconsistent in coordinated group content and the 2 Ultimate gain is relatively small.

In organized groups, players are typically rarely below 50% health, especially with overhealing and shielding. Because of this, the passive may rarely trigger, making it feel less impactful compared to other classes that received consistent group utility.

2. Do you feel this system helps in allowing for more player agency in a post subclassing play environment?

For Necromancer healers, Class Mastery currently does not significantly increase player agency.

At the Precipice does not meaningfully change gameplay decisions or create new support opportunities. Instead, it passively rewards situations where allies fall below 50% health, which is not something healers typically want to rely on.

Because of this, Necromancer healers do not gain additional flexibility or decision-making opportunities compared to other classes that received more consistent group support mechanics.

3. What are the things you like about Class Mastery?

The Class Mastery system is a great concept overall, particularly as a way to reward players for remaining pure class in a post-subclassing environment. It ideally brings increased class identity, new build options & diversity, and role-specific enhancements. Many classes received passives that clearly enhance support roles, which is especially valuable for group content and healer diversity.

4. What places do you think could use improvement with Class Mastery?

At the Precipice feels too limited for healer utility.

While At the Precipice fits Necromancer’s ultimate-focused identity, the current implementation feels too limited due to the under 50% Health requirement and the small ultimate gain.

Because of these limitations, the passive may rarely trigger and provide minimal group impact.

Lack of group utility compared to other classes

Many other classes received clear group utility from Class Mastery passives:

Templar: Group Weapon/Spell Damage
Warden: Major Brittle / Heroism
Dragonknight: Major Berserk / Protection
Sorcerer: Group shields and unique damage buffs
Nightblade: Group resources and ultimate generation

Currently, Necromancer healers receive very limited group utility from Class Mastery passives. This makes it harder for Necromancer healers to justify a support slot in group content compared to other classes that now provide stronger group benefits.

Any other general thoughts around Class Mastery?

Overall, the Class Mastery system is a strong addition and has great potential. However, Necromancer healers currently feel underserved compared to other classes.

Summary

Necromancer healers currently:

Require allies below 50% health for activation of passive
Provide limited group utility

RedMamba · April 14

Last thing we need is the defensive class masteries making people even more impossible to kill in Cyro

RedMamba · April 14

Add the heal back on to sorc ward so we can play magsorc again

Militan1404 · April 14

RedMamba wrote: »

Last thing we need is the defensive class masteries making people even more impossible to kill in Cyro

If you are actually struggle to kill player in cyro or any other form of pvp right now in this crit meta, you are doing it wrong

static_recharge · April 14

I haven't experimented with all of the different classes yet but I already have some feedback about the interface itself. First off, not being able to even click on the class mastery skill line just because I'm subclassing is a huge handicap. If I want to check and compare stats I have to start writing things down and respecing my character just to look at it. Why can't it be like the subclassing UI where I can see all of it even if I'm not specced into it? Just have the skills greyed out.

Second point for the UI, for the passives that upgrade a specific other passive I think it would be nice to include that passive's tooltip information in the class mastery tooltip so I don't have to keep flipping back and forth to see what each one is just by the name.

ceruulean · April 14

For DK, the class mastery Lead From the Front grants Major Berserk, and basically makes sorcerer's unique ultimate in a trial setting useless. Why summon an atronach when you can get Standard of Might and Major Berserk from the same buff toon? I don't really like this because DK already has a unique group damage boosting ult. It's kinda the same thing where adding more sources of Major Vuln has made necro's ult less special.

For Templar, Judgment’s Brand is too restrictive. Obviously it incentivizes players to use the multi-hit jabs. Unless the tooltip is wrong, "damage done" increases apply to each hit, similar to the Draugurkin set. So any single hit spammable like Dark Flare is disadvantaged. Also the Templar-only skill condition means that Templar is pigeonholed to Templar only skills. No other class has such a skill restriction on their class masteries. Every other class gets all damage boosts that apply to the character itself. Either this mastery should be nerfed but applies to all damage, or the condition is changed, such as boosting magic and physical damage only, to open up other spammable options: e.g. weapon spammables like Traveling Knife, Uppercut, Focused Aim, Elemental Weapon, or even Radiant Destruction as a spammable (meme but why not?)

Renato90085 · April 14

Did Class Mastery help in providing a meaningful boost to power for playing as a solo class?
yes..the Class Mastery buff many for all class

Do you feel this system helps in allowing for more player agency in a post subclassing play environment?
a little,but not enough
What are the things you like about Class Mastery?
the special passive ,like nb is only one class have 150% crit dmg?
What places do you think could use improvement with Class Mastery?
power not enough good,the meta build still won in everywhere,now in my test all class is buffed but still lag behind subclass
my pure nb in u49 is 137k ,only have single aim dps
in pts is 156k but still only have single aim dps,the meta can hit 170+ and it a aoe
Any other general thoughts around Class Mastery?
maybe try give some stat here,the meta subclass have 3dps line stack,it not 2 passive can fix gap
like.. if all class have 4k pen /some dmg passive in there,in real hard content,weak line build can use they line,Herald of the Tome will be not must

DoofusMax · April 14

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for the new Class Mastery System. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:
Did Class Mastery help in providing a meaningful boost to power for playing as a solo class?

Do you feel this system helps in allowing for more player agency in a post subclassing play environment?

What are the things you like about Class Mastery?

What places do you think could use improvement with Class Mastery?

Any other general thoughts around Class Mastery?

More testing needed, but here's the first impressions:

1. Kinda but not really. My test case was my solo Arcanist running Spindleclutch I (done it lots of times, so pretty good feel for time and effort to get from door to final boss). I did not notice any significant difference between U49 solo and U50 solo. Loadout was Tide-born, Deadly, 1 piece of Slimecraw, and Pale Order. I'd use Velothi, but (1) I'm missing one lead, which is a different problem (ahem, ahem) (2) Velothi got nerfed (ahem, ahem), and (3) since I don't have it on the live server, it's pointless to use it on PTS. So Pale Order since I'm solo and ain't no one flingin' heals but me (well, Azandar likes Chakram Shields, but still...).
2. Yes. The tooltips were clear about what benefits I was gaining from choosing particular Mastery passives, that I could pick no more than 2, and the like. Easy peasy interface and well-done on that front.
3. Keeping in mind that the system is intended to bring pure-class builds up closer to parity with subclassed builds, it kinda does what it purports to do. I don't think it's as close to parity as it could be, but it's better.
4. Passives could just just a bit more "oomph!", at least as far as Arcanist goes. More testing needed for other classes.
5. Cool concept, much needed, and mostly just needs dialing in to the "sweet spot". I don't think it will ever reach parity with subclassing, but narrowing the existing gap is a good start on it.

Alchimiste1 · April 14

Here’s the thing: my initial impression is that most of them are too weak. Yes, I know they seem very strong on paper, but that’s because people are comparing them to an era when only pure classes existed. Just think about what you give up in return: access to the best mobility skill, a delayed burst, or access to unblockable or undodgeable stuns. Subclassing created a lot of balance issues in PvP.

So if the plan is to roll out these class masteries and leave everything else alone, it’s not going to do much, if anything.

That being said, classes themselves are due for a rework, so I have no idea how you balance these in tandem. If class masteries are just a band-aid solution until class reworks happen, then the best approach is probably to make them very strong and then readjust them each time a new class is reworked.

SolarRune · April 14

As a support role player (tank and healer) in some cases these passives really force players to go pure class, and we go back to the dark ages of no build variety again. Healers and tanks are not in the same place as DDs with respect to how its impacted the game, all the tanks and healers I run with have said how good it has been over the last year being able to have some real build variety, because it hasn't been provided by sets since before the arcanist was in the game. Healing levels are still below u34 levels even with subclassing, and tanking has become more accessible to players.

As I feared what this shows is that there is no plan to equalise purclass and subclass for supports, its about effectively forcing people to play pureclass if you want to play mid level + content.

exiledtyrant · April 14

Tested New Sorcerer Masteries on PTS for about an hour on a dummy. Did the first test with my average geared live character and did the second with a fully equipped template.

PTS results for live character were that the Pure Sorcerer was directly competitive with my live Sorcerer DK multiclass build seen here at 54k dps vs 53k dps:

Sorc Pure Live

vs

Sorc DK Live

On the template character, I only wound up doing a pure test, as I have done an extensive test of my Sorc DK setup during last PTS, and nothing should have changed. Results were 115k for Sorc Pure vs 101k for Sorc DK:

Pure Sorc Template

Will run more tests later on the template build, as my live results were very consistent. It was easy to hit 20% weapon power using Font of Power, and Static Reverberation consistently contributed an extra 8% to 10% DPS.

Did Class Mastery help in providing a meaningful boost to power for playing as a solo class?

I think so. Current Sorceror Masteries have already proven to make my pure Sorcerer competitive with my Sorcerer DK hybrid using the same build. My build does pump out a lot of hits though, so it may be over-inflating the passive's power increase when thinking about baseline power for Sorceror.

Do you feel this system helps in allowing for more player agency in a post-subclassing play environment?

I do. Anything that reduces the reliance on subclassing for critical hit damage is a good thing. I feel like the current masteries are helping to do just that.

What are the things you like about Class Mastery?

Class masteries offer a fun way to boost your damage in similar ways to subclassing that are more flavorful and build defining.

What places do you think could use improvement with Class Mastery?

The masteries seem potent already. 20% weapon damage from Font of Power is already better than minor brutality/sorcery from sub-classing and probably worth about 6% out of the 12% critical damage you could get from a passive. Add another 8% to 10% raw damage that Static Reverberation has been adding to my parses, and that's gotta be close to what you get from 2 sub classes.

Not as strong overall as some Arcanist amalgam, but I'm hoping those Franksteins are ripped apart and rebalanced by the time all of the refreshes are over. Don't think masteries should use that as their measuring stick.

Maybe scale up Static Reverberation until it hits the DPS threshold you are looking for. Font of power could be dangerous with Warden freeing up the critical damage budget.

Any other general thoughts around Class Mastery?

Warden's increased access to Major Brittle may be one of the bigger changes to help pure classes free themselves from subclassing passives.

Grimsford · April 14

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for the new Class Mastery System. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:
Did Class Mastery help in providing a meaningful boost to power for playing as a solo class?

Do you feel this system helps in allowing for more player agency in a post subclassing play environment?

What are the things you like about Class Mastery?

What places do you think could use improvement with Class Mastery?

Any other general thoughts around Class Mastery?

Did Class Mastery help in providing a meaningful boost to power for playing as a solo class?

No, not at all. Especially after the nerf to Class Mastery Passives, pure classes (I tested the Necromancer, Nightblade, and Sorcerer) are still two times worse than multiclass;

Do you feel this system helps in allowing for more player agency in a post subclassing play environment?

I believe that in order to be competent, pure classes, or rather their new passives, should be buffed.
What are the things you like about Class Mastery?

Some of them (not all!) influence class identity and design. Take the Necromancer with its amazing corpse generation as an example;

What places do you think could use improvement with Class Mastery?

First and foremost, a numerical buff. And, instead of adding new mechanics through new class mastery passive skills, create more synergy with existing skill line passives (the Arcanist's 30% damage bonus or Nightblade´s Ult. regen are examples);

Any other general thoughts around Class Mastery?

The idea of class mastery passives is interesting, but it completely misses the point. After all, it was intended as a counterweight to the multiclass, but in the end, it's just another new mechanic that requires time and resources to balance, but which never quite evolved into a multiclass equivalent. Those responsible for the new passives need to consider dramatically increasing the power of these passives. Otherwise, this system is doomed.

CAB_Life · April 14

Since DK is effectively a 2.5 class, they should get TWO masteries, whereas every other gimped, lagging class should chose THREE until their respective updates—whenever those occur as ostensibly warden has already missed its deadline. Continuing to pile power onto a class with such a clear delta ahead of the others is typical ZOS fumbling. Do better.

ADarklore · April 14

WHY did you nerf the Templar Passive Judgment’s Brand before it even reached PTS? It's far too low right now, reducing it from 2000 to 1250 was unnecessary, instead of waiting to see how it actually played on PTS first. This definitely does not make me feel like playing a full Templar, at all.

Prionyx · April 14

NB class mastery

Nocturnal Inspiration: This passive upgrades rank 2 of Hemorrhage to have a chance equal to your Weapon Critical chance to grant you 2 Ultimate, up to once every 3 seconds. - If it's CD is actually 3 seconds then it's laughable and bad passive, if it's 0.3s as in PTS than it's good and in tandem with share the spoils will help pure NB healers a lot and fits class really well, covering both crit and ult gen aspects of the class

An Eye for Exploitation: This passive increases your Weapon and Spell Damage by up to 1250 and reduces your damage taken by up to 12%, both based on your target’s missing Health. - this one is good, it fits NB perfectly but could use some numbers shifts like up to 1500 wpd and up to 8% mitigation

Above and Beyond: This passive increases your Critical Damage and Healing by 15% (7% against players). It also increases your maximum potential Critical Damage and Healing by 25%, meaning it adds to the normal cap of 125%, bringing it to 150%. - Idea of increasing maximum potential of crit damage is good but overall this one sounds like a joke. As it's obviously DD oriented passive I'll only take into concideration PvE DD and PvP group and non group builds. PvE - 15% crit damage? Really? Why would someone want to give up, for example, herald of the tome line(which also grants 12% crit damage - almost just as much as this passive) but also gives a lot of OP skills and some other good passives for 15% crit(25% potential crit for which you should sacrifice other stats) along with some other OP skill line for a useless shadow or siphoning skill line and 15% crit? Makes even less sense in comparison to other mastery, you give arcanist plain and permanent 30% damage increase but NB couldn't even keep that poor 25% crit. And in pvp it's even more laughable since it's just 7%... You can get animal companions which will get you MORE crit than that but will also give you access to other passives that are way better than NB's and access to the best skill in PvP(shalks) and a few other good skills, and you also don't get any profit from increased maximum crit dmg since you'll never reach that cap in PvP to begin with. This one clearly doesn't make sence and numbers should be way higher. I'd suggest changing it to this:

Above and Beyond: This passive increases your Critical Damage and Healing by 25%. It also increases your maximum potential Critical Damage and Healing by 40%, meaning it adds to the normal cap of 125%, bringing it to 165%. If Battle Spirit is active, it only increases your Critical Damage(but not Critical Healing to ensure it doesn't provide too much defence) by 25%.

This would make much more sence.

Evasive Trance: This passive causes you to dodge incoming attacks for 1/3rd of a second when activating a Nightblade ability while Bracing. Dodging any attack through any means causes your attacker to take 5% increased damage for 5 seconds. - This one is just bad design. At first glance it looks fun, but in order for it to work properly people would have to weave differently now: light attack - block - skill, which is unintuitive and just weird. Also it's a passive that heavily limits NB's mobility which also doesn't make much sence. Just remove "while bracing" requierement and this passive will still be weak, but at least it will not be poorly designed. I'd suggest update this passive to increase your damage done by 5% on top of this and damage taken increase(but don't make it 10% damage taken increase, would be too much) or update it to reduce damage taken by 10% if you want it to be more tank oriented but also viable in PvP. This way it would be good.

Share the Spoils: This passive upgrades rank 2 of Transfer to double the ultimate you gain from it (4, up from 2) while also granting the nearest 4 group members 250 Magicka and Stamina and 1 Ultimate upon activating. - good design and will help pure NB healers in tandem with Nocturnal Inspiration, but numbers are a bit low for PvE. It's should be good enough for PvP but in PvE your group doesn't need much sustain. I'd suggest changing it to 250 mag+stam and 2 ultimate if battle spirit is inactive.

Dracane · April 14

CAB_Life wrote: »

Since DK is effectively a 2.5 class, they should get TWO masteries, whereas every other gimped, lagging class should chose THREE until their respective updates—whenever those occur as ostensibly warden has already missed its deadline. Continuing to pile power onto a class with such a clear delta ahead of the others is typical ZOS fumbling. Do better.

I had a similar thought. DK getting the same benefits in its current state seems dangerous.

ZhuJiuyin · April 14

Did Class Mastery help in providing a meaningful boost to power for playing as a solo class?

Yes, pure classes are more competitive.

Do you feel this system helps in allowing for more player agency in a post subclassing play environment?

Yes, it increases the diversity of choices. Players can freely choose between subclasses and pure classes, and they have similar functions.

What are the things you like about Class Mastery?

It's clear that the development team has indeed optimized for the pain points of each class, which is excellent.

What places do you think could use improvement with Class Mastery?

The balance is still not perfect. For example, Sorc still lacks sources of penetration and critical damage (although we know Sorc will be refreshed at the end of this year, we still hope to provide penetration and critical damage in Class Mastery).

Allowing Dragoons to provide Major Berserk to the team further reduces the possibility of Sorc joining a team. In the next 6-8 months , Sorc may not be seen at all of trials, because Dragoons are a class that has already been refreshed and is considered advantageous, while Sorc was still an outdated class before the refresh.

Any other general thoughts around Class Mastery?

It's a great attempt. Although there are still many details that need adjustment, the general direction is correct.

Dracane · April 14

Some more thoughts on the individual Sorcerer passives after testing for all the night. It's more about bugs and lacking interactions.

Sphere of Influence

I was surprised to see that only one of these extra wards can exist at a time. The tooltip makes me believe any shield I cast produced one additional ward. On the PTS; these wards are capped at 25% max health, while in the patchnotes it says capped at 15%. Since we can only have one ward, a 15% cap would make this entirely useless. So I hope the 25% is true.

The talent lacks interactions with most things. Namely Daedric Refuge, which does not create a ward; neither on cast nor (more importantly) on allies picking up those runes. That seems like a missed upportunity to make Sorc tanks and healers somewhat interesting again. Warding Burst from the scribing altar, when turned into a damage shield, applies the extra shield to allies and pets, but not to self. (Still testing this. It sometimes shows that it applies it and sometimes not. Just a bug I think.)
The ward also does not get produced by Frost Staff heavy attacks, by warding enchants and any other shield proc not directly tied to a skill. May be intended this way, but Daedric Refuge and Warding Burst can't possibly be intended.

Another problem is that it appears this ward is cast underneath the main ward that produced it. This makes no sense gameplay wise, because the whole point of this ward is to take heat off of the longer lasting main wards. Wards last for 6 seconds, while this one lasts for 4. So while my main ward takes all the damage, this here ward simply runs out with its shorter duration without actually adding any value.

It should be produced on top of the main ward as a buffer.

Thank you for adding 150 recoveries to this though. So even if the ward itself is useless in many situations, at least we get some recovery...

Calculated Defense

This talent has a hidden cooldown not mentioned in the tooltip. This ward can not be refreshed or re-created while the current one is active, and also not for some milliseconds thereafter.

Conservation of Energy

This also has a hidden cooldown through the Blood Magic passive. Blood Magic can apparently only trigger once every 0.5 seconds, despite not saying so in either tooltip. If I use Overload > Skill > Overload > Skill, the Skill cast/hit will neither trigger the healing nor the ressource restore of Conservation of Energy. I would like to see these internal cooldowns removed to allow for more synergy.

Some skills do not seem to activate this:
Streak does not trigger this passive even when hitting enemies, while Ball of Lightning correctly triggers it.
Missing Overload attacks without hitting, even though the passive should proc on skill cast.

Static Reverberation

Has proven itself viable and good in dummy tests. Useless for open world and pvp in my opinion, but for parsing (which apparently matters most) it does the work.

Vaqual · April 14

Some masteries are indeed extremely strong and not much different from what we saw in the stream preview. In that sense the goal to bring power of pure class setups closer to meta subclass builds was achieved. The big losers here are the subclass builds that incorporate non-meta lines for flavor.
I can't honestly say that I think the solution is good. But at this point I'll refrain from detailed criticism until the class reworks are done, I don't think people are receptive for it anyway.

I'll just say that I find many of them way too strong. People often act as if some skill lines had 0 value to begin with, but that is obviously an exaggeration. For example, Conservation of Energy (+ you can bring Surge) just leaves any other form of fully passive heals completely in the dust, while providing resource sustain that can easily eclipse scribed resource restores or dedicated sustain abilities. And the thematic fit? Seems arbitrary. Doesn't blood magic mean anyway that you'd sacrifice blood for spells? One passive from Dark Magic should be better at siphoning than the entire skill line of Siphoning? Besides the point. I have to say I dislike this extreme power creep. Can someone explain to me how this isn't just a reversion of the back-and-forth hardened ward changes from the last two years, except that this is way stronger? Wasn't there a unanimous conclusion that this was bad?

Many such cases with those masteries...

These were either designed without the intent of providing a balanced experience or with a very poor understanding of the game.

Aces-High-82 · April 14

Conservation of Energy: worse compared to Heart of Flame which now provides 15% of max health which is better than the Bloodmagic passive.
A static ressource restore like it was shown at the first time (1k mag and stam each) or bumping it up to 3% or adding 2% of max health would make it more considerable than just subclassing Ardent Flame for HoF

Font of Power: the scaling is a bit too harsh. The previous scaling at 1% per 1.5k max resource would be reasonable

Calculated Defense: considering you would have to slot the Bastion CP in order to make it somewhat valuable at least its duration could be adjusted to persist for a Global Cooldown turning it into a small additional layer of defense rewarding execution from the player