U50 Feedback Thread for Classes and Abilities

ZOS_Kevin · April 13

This is the official feedback thread for any combat or class changes coming in Update 50. After you have a chance to try out different combat scenarios, let us know what you think of the current balance and changes. We have a separate thread specifically for Werewolf due to the number of changes being made. You can find that link here.

For context regarding timeline for changes, stats or number changes for skills are changes we can make within the PTS cycle. If the changes or suggestions require more technical changes, we will take those to the combat team and update timelines based on what the team is able to do.

Emeratis · April 13

I hope this is the right place to talk about skill styles, it felt like the best place to potentially do so of the options on the list. I will say I appreciate the "no weapon override" version of molten and letting players choose, that's awesome to see. I also appreciate trying to give players green skill styles to replace the loss of the old poison morphs but I have two complaints about them overall.

1. While I like the green fire, part of what I liked about the original Noxious Breath was a cool orange/green gradient.
Original Noxious

PTS Green

I am not necessarily asking for this to be changed currently (completely green fire is cool and there is a need for it as a skill style imo), but I would like an offering of the orange/green gradient style in the future (as well as possible other gradients of orange/blue orange/purple or even color combos like blue/purple) for this skill style. It has a lot of potential and one of my dragonknights in character uses flames of various colors in dance and combat and I would like a way to represent that better.

2. I am disappointed that Hearthfire was not considered for a legacy skill style and I would like to see that changed/added. Ash Cloud was a very cool skill that was a big part of my dk healer's identity. I had hoped that with talks of legacy skills for DK we would maybe see a black Hearthfire skill style that could at least give us a little bit of the old look for Ash Cloud and I would very much like for it to be considered in the future if it's not in the scope of this pts.

RedMamba · April 14

Disintegrating Dragonfire Skill still doesn't hit targets right in front of you half the time and you end up spamming it before it finally registers on them. The target system for noxious breath and this has always been unreliable even if a target is in range and right in front of you.

PeacefulAnarchy · April 14

Fixed an issue where some bonuses that granted “damage done to monsters” were multiplicative with other damage bonuses, instead of additive. Affects the following;

Empower

[Developer Comment]
Spoiler
This fix will result in the affected effects to be reduced in power when used in tandem with other percent based damage bonuses. While we've gently increased some of the affected effects, some of these remain untouched until we get more data on average value impacts (since the change in power was dependent on what other bonuses were being ran in tandem), which we can rectify during PTS or in a future update if necessary.

I have some issues with this change in general, but I want to focus in on Empower because it's a very big % value, tied to a very specific playstyle whose main numbers are clear. There are two ways people use empower, as part of oakensoul and with voidmantle, on heavy attack builds. That means that at the very least, with oakensoul you had Minor Slayer and Minor Berserk and on any reasonable build Weapon's Expert CP. There are other CP and other buffs you could have, but these would be the baseline. Minor Berserk and Slayer are also not hard to source so pretty expected buffs in a voidmantle situation.

For an oakensoul baseline user we went from 1.36*1.7=2.312 coefficient to 2.06 coefficient.
For a voidmantle user we went from 1.86*1.7=3.162 coefficient to 2.56.
These are big nerfs to builds that are nowhere near meta. You could change empower to 100% from 70% and it would be barely a slight buff to baseline oakensoul users (and a slight nerf to most real oakensoul users) and still a noticeable nerf to voidmantle users.

I know there are some other variables going on in there, but I don't see what you need to wait and see to realize at least some buff needs to be made. You could have changed empower to 100% and then see where it lands and decide if it needs further buff. Starting from no change makes me doubt that a proper adjustment is going to come in the next few weeks. Empower has worked as multiplicative for almost 4 years, the power is what is expected and what heavy attack builds have been balanced around, if the buckets were an issue, it was an issue that informed the numbers you chose for empower in the first place.

BTW I did a quick parse test on a voidmantle build I tried 2 days ago and the last tick of the heavy attacks did go down about 25% so this isn't just theoretical. I also did a parse on an oakensoul build and the last tick of the heavy attacks are down about 16% from the exact same build on live.
Both of these parses were under 100k, btw. I'm sure a fully optimized voidmantle build could still get over 100k, but it would still be miles away from la builds. Empower doesn't affect PVP either, so there's no real fear of this ending up overpowered if you buff empower significantly.

noblecron · April 14

Toning down the contrast of the new green would be great. Make it similar to the original green fire. That would be nice

also I found a bug with a skill style

Coldharbour scion. Your character is a floating mass of flame. Also uses the male vampire sounds

I mean on the one hand I could def rp it as a shadow entity but on the other this feels like a bug

Faulgor · April 14

Lava Whip
Flame Lash: This morph no longer grants increased damage done after consuming all charges, as we have recontextualized damage into the Class Mastery system.
Molten Whip: This morph no longer grants increased damage done per stack, as we have recontextualized damage into the Class Mastery system.

This is a massive nerf to any DK who dared to dabble in subclassing - I'm not sure how to feel about this.
But it's worth pointing out that "if you are a Dragonknight" and "if you do not subclass" are not synonymous.

I think, long term, making class masteries apply "if you are that class" instead of "if you do not subclass" might be a better design, because it rewards sticking with your base class skill lines (which get better with selected class masteries) while not making subclassing completely useless.

YandereGirlfriend · April 14

Faulgor wrote: »

Lava Whip
Flame Lash: This morph no longer grants increased damage done after consuming all charges, as we have recontextualized damage into the Class Mastery system.
Molten Whip: This morph no longer grants increased damage done per stack, as we have recontextualized damage into the Class Mastery system.

This is a massive nerf to any DK who dared to dabble in subclassing - I'm not sure how to feel about this.
But it's worth pointing out that "if you are a Dragonknight" and "if you do not subclass" are not synonymous.

I think, long term, making class masteries apply "if you are that class" instead of "if you do not subclass" might be a better design, because it rewards sticking with your base class skill lines (which get better with selected class masteries) while not making subclassing completely useless.

Same thing happened to Pyrebrand.

The set was absolutely dumpstered unless you are both a pureclass DK AND using the specific random passive. This is not the direction that the design of IA sets should be heading.

karios525 · April 14

Well I was going to subscribe to eso plus again but these stupid nerfs, particularly to empower and tide born, made me change my mind. Why Gillam is allowed to make any changes when the new combat team seemed to be so much better with the dk refresh I'll never know. Guess will leave the game again, see what state the warden is in come update 51. I was getting so excited with new builds, now I feel deflated.

gresiac · April 14

karios525 wrote: »

Well I was going to subscribe to eso plus again but these stupid nerfs, particularly to empower and tide born, made me change my mind. Why Gillam is allowed to make any changes when the new combat team seemed to be so much better with the dk refresh I'll never know. Guess will leave the game again, see what state the warden is in come update 51. I was getting so excited with new builds, now I feel deflated.

Guess you only want to play op classes.

karios525 · April 14

Nope I main both warden and templar, as I prefer casual play, so nerfing tide born and empower, both of which are not meta in any way or shape just shows how the combat team don't even play their own game, so please don't pigeon hole me into false accusations of playing a dk when I dont.

Decimus · April 14

The PvP specific nerf to Northern Storm feels kind of unjustified. The ultimate is not really considered too broken or "meta" on Live, so seeing its damage increase go from 2% to 1% for no reason is sad.

I would recommend keeping the 2% or even buffing it like the PvE version and later nerfing it in Warden Rework if it turns out to be too broken.

Orbital78 · April 14

I think the team needs to relook at the status of heavy attack builds and their current power. You keep pushing the dps up of every other playstyle but now you're nerfing empower for a playstyle that was already falling way behind. This could be done with sets and weapon passives some what to offset the decline. I don't get nerfing something that was already falling behind and excluded because of its current ceiling.

If you want to preserve the longevity of your game, you should rethink things and keep things fun and diverse. A company that is doing things well, will always thrive with support. With the last few DLCs filled with bugs and declining quality, I have been looking for something new.

pluvioisaplanet · April 15

Can we have a look at the Necromancer Class Flourish?

Ever since the change to corpses to have them despawn more frequently, this script has been very lackluster on Necromancer as there's just too few corpses around for the Class Flourish to use meaningfully.

I was wondering if it could have a similar condition to the new Class Mastery, Nothing Wasted, where consuming a corpse adds a stack for a duration.

CameraBeardThePirate · April 15

pluvioisaplanet wrote: »

Can we have a look at the Necromancer Class Flourish?

Ever since the change to corpses to have them despawn more frequently, this script has been very lackluster on Necromancer as there's just too few corpses around for the Class Flourish to use meaningfully.

I was wondering if it could have a similar condition to the new Class Mastery, Nothing Wasted, where consuming a corpse adds a stack for a duration.

Agreed. The Necro Class Script is hot garbage in 90% of content (basically anything outside of Imperial City where there are extended fights with lots and lots of mobs).

Making corpses despawn quickly heavily neutered this class script. What's even the point of allowing it to stack to 10 if you're basically never going to be able to get it above 3?

The stacks need to be additive instead of completely replacing whatever the previous value was, or at the very least, it should create a corpse every time, regardless of if there's a corpse nearby, AND apply the stacks.

There's really no reason to use this script anymore outside of hyper specific shielding builds.

Contraptions · April 16

I need to ask - the new DK skill style without changing your weapon models. Is is restricted to only the default orange glow or now is there that plus blue or green, all with the choice to keep your original weapon's looks? Hope it's the latter.

BasP · April 16

Here's some feedback about the Warden changes.

Northern Storm
I love the fact that you've buffed Northern Storm. I must say I didn't expect this since the entire class will be reworked soon (something I'm definitely looking forward to!).

Even though the buff it has received was quite substantial already, I do think it'd be great if the Ultimate if was buffed a bit more. The gap between builds that use the Warden's bear, especially in combination with the Shattered Paths Signet mythic, and builds that use Northern Storm is still too big in my opinion.

For reference, I did 188K DPS with the Wild Guardian and the aforementioned mythic shortly after the PTS launched. I also did a few parses with a Northern Storm setup yesterday and only did 171K DPS. I think it'd be great if that would've been something along the lines of 178K - 180K myself. Maybe the duration of the Ultimate could be increased a bit and/or the Frost Damage it does could be increased?

These are the parses I mentioned:

With the bear and the Signet:

With Northern Storm and the Huntsman's Warmask

Nature's Gift
I do think it's nice that the passive restores both resources right now. In my opinion It would be great if this passive procced on overhealing as well, however, and if the Bountiful Harvest Class Mastery would proc on overhealing too. It would both improve the Warden's sustain and make it easier to grant the target(s) Major Heroism.

I suppose these aren't really good illustrations of the current Nature's Gift, but I soloed the first two bosses of veteran Castle Thorn as well as a High Isle World Boss and the resource the passive restored wasn't that great in all three cases.

Bond with Nature
Since one of the Class Masteries interacts with Bond with Nature, I thought I'd mention this passive too. At the moment it's pretty underwhelming when you compare it to e.g. the Sorcerer's Blood Magic. Since Blood Magic scales with your Max Health, unlike Bond with Nature, it heals for noticeably more. And when you're at full health, Blood Magic increases your Max Magicka or Stamina as well. Perhaps Bond with Nature could scale with your Max Health and/or have a secondary effect too?

During the previous PTS cycle I also wrote some generic Warden feedback, which I never got around to posting. I'm hesitant to add it to this post, since it doesn't pertain to the upcoming changes and it might be outdated considering you're already reworking the Warden, but seeing as I wrote it all I'll go ahead and add it anyways. I'll put it in a spoiler tag so that it can easily be ignored and won't clutter the thread with a huge wall of text, though.

Generic pain points

The class has quite a few abilities with morphs that are fairly similar. It would be great if they were more differentiated so that we’d have morphs that are clearly suited for different roles or scenarios. This goes for most of the healing abilities in the Green Balance line, but also for abilities like the Feral Guardian, Sleet Storm, Frost Cloak and Frozen Gate.
The Wild Guardian is responsible for a relatively large part of the Warden’s/Animal Companions skill line’s damage output in PvE, especially if you use the new Shattered Paths Signet Mythic. It’s great that such a setup can achieve high DPS on a Trial Dummy and in Single Target parse fights, but it isn't really practical in a lot of ESO's content. The bear only deals ST damage, doesn’t tend to attack the right enemy (I know you can command it, but still), lacks burst damage and doesn’t benefit from e.g. Pillager’s Profit much. I do hope this is taken into account when refreshing the Warden. I think it’d be very good for the viability of the class if using, for example, Northern Storm and a different Mythic wouldn’t be as much of a DPS loss as it is now.
Even though the Animal Companions skill line isn’t used much in end-game PvE at the moment, it is one of the meta options in PvP. I hope that won’t stop the skill line from being improved for PvE, though. Maybe the “damage done against monsters” buff could be utilised and/or maybe some skills could function a little bit different in PvP and PvE (similar to the reworked Take Flight)?
The Warden currently has four different damage types in its class kit: Magic, Frost, Bleed and Poison. I think it would be good for the class's identity if this was more streamlined. Limiting it to just Frost and Bleed or Poison would also mean that the class could benefit more from sets like Frostbite and Blooddrinker or The Morag Tong.
The class unfortunately doesn’t have a good spammable. I think it would help its class identity if it had one, since Wardens right now are relegated to using weapon spammables or spammables of a subclassed skill line.

I’ll go over most of the abilities in the skill lines next, though I realise some maybe shuffled or even scrapped during the refresh.

Animal Companions
Feral Guardian - Eternal Guardian

The morphs of the Feral Guardian are pretty much identical. Both bears mostly deal single target damage, are permanent pets and are only useful for one role. Since the Eternal Guardian is the weaker of the two morphs by a good margin, I think it would be great if that morph would be reworked so that it would be more distinctive from the Wild Guardian. It could, for example:
Not be a permanent pet. Instead, it could be reworked into a cheap single barred Ultimate that briefly summons a bear that mauls your target(s), similar to the Vengeance version. This attack could still have execute scaling and possibly increase your damage done to monsters by X% for Y seconds after activating it. Players could then use e.g. Northern Storm for the first part of a fight and use this morph during the execute phase.
Become a (single barred) support morph. The Ultimate could summon a bear that roars and applies a buff to group members and/or debuff to enemies, for example, and maybe even grant Minor Protection when it’s slotted on either bar.
Remain a permanent pet but always deal AoE damage, clearly separating it from the Single Target damage oriented Wild Guardian.

Here's an example of a new tooltip, just because I was bored:

Dive

It would be nice to make its cost depend on your Highest Max Resource and apply that to the morphs as well. If both spammables end up being good after the refresh, players could then choose the one that best fits their build instead of being forced to use one due to its cost (especially if the morphs end up dealing the same damage type).
I hope the travel speed will be increased a bit so that this ability feels better to use.
I'd personally love it if the morphs would lead to (slightly) different playstyles/rotations, similar to the reworked Dragonknight's Flame Lash and Molten Whip.

Dive - Cutting Dive

This ability isn’t really in a great spot at the moment. I believe doesn't deal as much DPS as spammables such as Lethal Arrow and Rapid Strikes, which any Warden can use, and subclassed Wardens often have access to even better spammables.
Using the ability as a DoT isn’t that great either, however, because the DoT isn’t that strong.
Therefore I think it would be great if this ability would be turned into a better spammable, which could possibly be accomplished by making its DoT stack up to X times again. It would also be nice if the direct damage would be increased by ~3%, because it currently deals less instant damage than (most) other ranged spammables.

Dive - Screaming Cliff Racer

While the Weapon/Spell Damage buff is good on paper if you can consistently benefit from it, it doesn’t make the skill itself a good spammable. If one uses this morph, I believe it’s generally better to use it alongside a better spammable and only use the Cliff Racer for its buff. To incentivise casting the skill itself more often, I think it'd be great if it received a damage buff (or would be reworked entirely).
I suppose it would be nice to turn it into a Frost Damage ability so that Wardens would have a Frost Damage spammable in their kit as well. A new type of Glacial Cliff Racer, perhaps? Or maybe it could be changed into a small Ice Wraith instead of a Cliff Racer or something.

Scorch - Subterranean Assault

I think this morph could be buffed a little bit to make it a more attractive option for DPS compared to Deep Fissure. Deep Fissure applies two debuffs, is arguably easier to use because it has a longer duration, and some builds even deal more DPS overall on a Trial Dummy with it.
Therefore, maybe Subterranean Assault’s first and/or second hit could always apply its corresponding status effect? So Poisoned, or Hemorrhaging if it ends up dealing Bleed Damage?

Scorch - Deep Fissure

Some players have mentioned that this ability is too good in PvP at the moment. If that's a concern, it might be nice to remove either the Major or Minor Breach from this ability. That would negatively impact PvE’ers that currently use Deep Fissure for its debuffs, however, which would be unfortunate. But maybe it would be possible to apply just one of those debuffs to players and both to monsters?
It would be great for Frost Damage builds if this morph dealt Frost Damage. If I remember correctly, ESO_Nightingale has suggested to turn the shalk into an Ice Wraith before. Since Wraiths have the Shard Burst ability (“The wraith burrows underground and bursts at its target's location”), it would be fitting.

Swarm

Neither morph is used a whole lot by PvE damage dealers since the DoTs don’t deal that much damage. With a non-class DoT such as Carve, for exampe, one often does more DPS.
Swarm isn't a great source of Minor Vulnerability for supports either compared to other options like Unnerving Boneyard (which applies the debuff in an AOE, applies Major Breach and has a Synergy), Ulfsild’s Contingency (which can apply the debuff in an AOE as well) and Rune of the Colorless Pool (which applies both Minor Vulnerability and Minor Brittle).
Hence, I believe both morphs would benefit from buffs or reworks.

Swarm - Fetcher Infection

Perhaps this morph could also apply a second, more unique debuff that would benefit the group? Everyone could have an increased chance to apply Status Effects by X% against the target, for example, which would make this a good skill for Warden damage dealers and supports. The benefit of going with Status Effects is that it would benefit all allies, unlike a debuff that only increases the damage of one specific damage type. It would also fit the “Infection” theme of this morph, I think.
Alternatively, perhaps the target could take X% more damage from the caster’s Warden abilities or something?
If this ability received a good second effect, I think the “every second cast of this ability deals 60% increased damage” portion of the morph could perhaps be dropped. If an effect like that is to stay, however, I’d personally prefer it if the skill dealt 60% more damage against targets below 50% health. It wouldn't change much in the grand scheme of things, but it admittedly just sounds cooler to me.

Swarm - Growing Swarm

I think it would be great if its radius would be increased and it would apply Minor Vulnerability to all enemies it damages instead of just the initial target, so that it would be more competitive with the other skills that apply the debuff in an AOE.
I believe the damage other enemies take can be increased slightly, by ~10% or so, as well. This would make the AoE damage more comparable to other AoE abilities.
Personally, I think it would be nice if this morph lasted 10 seconds because the Warden could use another good AoE skill. Having one 20 second and one 10 second morph would allow players to choose the one that best fits their preferred playstyle/ rotation as well.

Another example of new tooltips:

Betty Netch

It’s obviously a good skill already, but to further increase its usefulness in PvE I'm wondering if if the damage done buff could be changed into a “damage done to monsters” buff and be increased to maybe 10%? In that case it could be decoupled from the purge mechanic too and just be granted while the skill is active, since it wouldn't be effective in PvP anymore.
Although this is a minor thing, I think it would be nice if it lasted 30 seconds, which would match the duration of skills such as Molten Weapons and Tome-Bearer's Inspiration.
I believe some players have said that the fact that the ability is free to cast makes it too good in PvP, since it's a free purge on demand. If that is a concern, perhaps the ability could be given a cost so that it can't be spammed without consequences anymore? In that case it would be nice if the cost would be added to the amount of resources it restores, though.

Falcon's Swiftness - Bird of Prey

I think it would be nice if the Minor Berserk buff would be granted when the skill is slotted on either bar, just like how some other class abilities work. Since the skill has to be front barred now, it’s competing with a passive skill such as Camouflaged Hunter that also gives a decent uptime on Minor Berserk in most fights and grants Major Savagery/Prophecy. If Bird Of Prey could be back barred instead, it might become situationally useful for some setups.
I’d love to have a reason to use this skill in PvE as a DPS because the animation is cool. Maybe activating it could grant a useful buff for X seconds?

Falcon's Swiftness - Deceptive Predator

I think Minor Evasion could be given when its slotted on either bar too.
To make the skill a little more useful for supports in some scenarios, maybe activating it could also reduce your damage taken from monsters or grant a buff to you and your allies for X seconds?

An example of new tooltips:

Passive - Bond with Nature

This passive is a little bit underwhelming, in my opinion, compared to Dark Magic’s Blood Magic passive. I believe that passive has a slightly higher base value, scales further off Max Health and increases your Max Stamina/Magicka if it doesn’t heal you.

Passive - Savage Beast

Since the Animal Companions skill line only really has one passive that increases DPS, Advanced Species, I believe Savage Beast should get a second effect that is useful for damage dealers (just like how Blessing at the Peak grants Ultimate and increases Critical Damage by 10%).
Maybe it could increase either Bleed Damage or the damage of the Hemorrhaging status effect or something? Having a passive in this skill line that’s focused on one of these things would add a nice bit of class identity, in my opinion.

Passive - Advanced Species

Since a lot of passives that increase Critical Damage grant a second benefit as well (such as Blessing at the Peak, Hemorrhage, Fated Fortune and Piercing Spear), I think it would be fair if Advanced Species had a second effect as well.

Winter's Embrace
Sleet Storm - Northern Storm

It would be great if this morph would become a more viable alternative to the Wild Guardian than it is now, in my opinion, so that Wardens would have a good class Ultimate they could use outside of single target fights. In order to facilitate the additional damage, I think Major Protection and possibly the Movement Speed reduction could be removed from this morph of Sleet Storm. Northern Storm could then be the morph that’s clearly meant for DPS and Permafrost could be the morph that offers utility.
Northern Storm’s DoT could last longer, for example, and the duration of the damage done buff could be increased accordingly as well.
And/or Northern Storm could always apply the Chilled Status Effect or have a higher chance to apply it. Chilled deals quite some damage due to the Glacial Presence buff, so it might make sense to add something like that to this morph instead of Permafrost.

Sleet Storm - Permafrost

Permafrost’s Major Protection for 13 seconds isn’t that great, especially when you compare it to the new Standard of Might that grants allies a unique 10% damage mitigation and 300 Weapon/ Spell Damage for 15 seconds, and also costs 200 Ultimate. Hence, I think Permafrost’s duration should be increased to at least 15 seconds and that it needs another effect.
Maybe it could apply Major Brittle instead of Chilled (unless that debuff stays on the Hypothermia Class Mastery passive, of course)? I feel like that would be thematic for this skill line.

Frost Cloak

At the moment both Frost Cloak morphs are relatively similar. Hence, I think it'd be great for Frost Damage builds if the effects of the current morphs would be condensed (Ice Fortress's Minor Protection could be added to Expansive Frost Cloak, for example). A new morph could then only apply Major Resolve to the player and deal Frost Damage in some way.

Impaling Shards

I think it would be thematic if this ability and its morphs would always apply Minor Brittle so that Wardens could apply that debuff without necessarily having a Frost Staff equipped.

Impaling Shards - Winter’s Revenge

It’s the only class ability that specifically deals more damage when a certain weapon type is used (“This damage increases by 30% if cast with a Destruction Staff equipped"), which seems strange to me. I think it’d be great if the base damage of the skill would just be increased by 30% instead, regardless of the weapon that is equipped, because the DPS of the DoT itself is lower than the DPS of some other class ground DoTs right now.
I think it might be nice to make it last 15 seconds instead of 12 seconds. The most commonly used back barred weapon skills in PvE (Stampede, Elemental Blockade and Endless Hail) all last 15 seconds, so if Winter’s Revenge – which is generally slotted on the back bar – had the same duration it might make the refreshed Warden’s rotation a little bit easier for players.

Arctic Wind - Arctic Blast

I believe the radius could be increased to at least 7 meters since that is the melee range.
I think it would be great if this ability would always heal you again and not just when you don’t hit an enemy, too.
If something has to go from the skill in order to get back the heal, I personally wouldn’t mind it if the ability didn’t stun enemies after 3 seconds. Maybe one reworked ability in the Green Balance or Winter’s Embrace skill line could then be turned into a reliable on-demand stun instead.

Frozen Gate

Because the morphs of this ability are relatively similar right now, and because both have pretty niche uses cases, I think it would be great if at least one of the morphs would be reworked into something that’s more generally useful for either DPS, tanks or healers.
It could, for example, function as a trap that deals X Frost Damage in an AoE when triggered and applies a short Frost DoT to those it hits.

Passive - Frozen Armor

While this is a minor thing, I personally think it would be nice if this passive would work similar to Aegis of the Unseen (which grants 3271 Armor when you have a Soldier of Apocrypha ability active) or Heart of Stone (which grants 2974 Armor unconditionally) so that this passive would become more universally useful for all builds.
You currently need to slot three Winter’s Embrace skills on one bar to get more value out of Frozen Armor than the aforementioned passives, but that’s not something players generally do right now.
Just to give two examples: I believe (main) tanks might use Polar Wind on the front bar and Expansive Frost Cloak on the back bar, so in that case the passive only grants them 1240 Armor on both bars. DPS builds generally slot Arctic Blast and Winter’s Revenge on the back bar because those skills have a long duration, so they get 0 Armor on their front bar but 2480 Armor on their back bar (which isn’t really useful).
I fully realise the Warden refresh might change the skill bar setups, though, so maybe this will become a moot point by then.

Passive - Icy Aura

I think this passive is a bit underwhelming in its current state. Shield Throw with the Maim Affix Script can already apply Major Maim for 10 seconds on demand, which is better and more reliable than Icy Aura’s passive source of the debuff. Therefore I think it might be good to make it apply Major Maim more consistently, faster and perhaps even in an AoE, or to rework this passive entirely.

Green Balance
I’ve made a post with Poison DPS morphs for all Green Balance abilities before, so I won’t go over every ability and only post some (slightly) new ideas.
Corrupting Pollen

I'd personally like it if this morph would become more useful in PvE for either tanks or damage dealers. It could summon a field of thorns or vines that snare enemies, for example, and:
Deal Bleed Damage over its duration.
And maybe apply Major Cowardice instead of Minor Cowardice when Battle Spirit isn’t active (if such a thing would be possible). I realise AoE Major Cowardice alongside the other effects might make the skill a little bit overpowered, though.

Leeching Vines

I think it’d be great if this morph would be turned into a strong Bleed Damage ability so that the Green Balance skill line would be more useful for pure Warden DPS builds.
I’d personally like it if it would also restore Health over its duration as I feel like it would fit the “Leeching” part of the name. If this heal scaled off either your Highest Offensive Stats or Max Health, it would maybe be helpful for multiple setups too.

Lotus Blossom

It would be great if this skill had a damage component to it, similar to the reworked Molten Weapons, so that the Green Balance skill line would have another useful ability for DPS.
I personally think it would be fine to reduce Lotus Blossom’s duration from 1 minute to 30 seconds and/or increase the cost, if that would allow the skill to both do damage and heal you. If the duration would be decreased, I suppose it would be nice if Major Savagery and Prophecy would be granted passively while the skill is slotted on either bar, though.

Nature’s Grasp

This skill has a pretty niche function right now and the same goes for both of its morphs. Perhaps one morph could instead be turned into a useful skill for tanks? It could for example pull an enemy, taunt them and grant Ultimate (since both morphs of the skill currently grant Ultimate as well).
Alternatively, maybe a morph could be turned into a stun if that effect would be removed from Arctic Blast.

Passive - Accelerated Growth

It would be great if this passive had a benefit for either tanks or DPS too.
Since healers gain Major Mending when healing someone under 40% Health, perhaps a new DPS buff could mimic this a little bit? Dealing damage to an enemy under 40% Health with a Green Balance ability could increase your damage done by X% for 4 seconds, for example. It could be “up to 16%”, since Major Mending buffs healing by 16%. It would be a nice way to give the class some built-in execute scaling.

Passive - Emerald Moss

Similarly, it would be awesome if slotting Green Balance abilities had a benefit for tanks or damage dealers as well.
Perhaps each Green Balance ability could increase your Damage Done or Healing Received by 3%, for example?

Gh0stDaddy · April 17

"Warden: This script now causes charmed enemies to walk to the center of the area, rather than to follow the caster. This was done in an effort to try and mitigate the frequency this charm could force enemies through terrain."

This script is absolutely broken in pvp but somehow does nothing in pve.

Size:

This thing is the size of a football field. Literally almost the size of a tower in a keep in Cyrodil. That alone for an AOE CC is broken. Mass Hysteria is 6 meters. Hypnosis is 7 meters but your enemies must be "facing your direction". And that's all that those skills do. You still get two other scripts to play with on this skill. Please reduce the size of this in pvp to that of old Cinder Storm, i.e. 5 meters.

In pve, you can keep the same size but make it actually work. Also, it's great that it "causes charmed enemies to walk to the center of the area" as it might actually be useful for a trash pulls. Basically give it the separate pvp and pve applications that you gave to the Dragonknights Dragon Leap.

Application/Counterplay:

There is currently no counter play to this skill. There is no visual indication that anything has happened to your player. Currently you lose control of your player and jerk around unsure of if your are lagging out or what. This, and all other scribing skills, such as shield throw, knife, etc, need to present some kind of visual indication on your character so that you know that your are CC'ed. Every other CC that I can think of does so. This and other scribing skills need to do so as well. There needs to be counterplay which there currently is not.

Thank you for your consideration.

Dalinar4 · April 17

TLDR: Templar IA sets just aren't worth using.

I think this is the right place to put this. I doubt many people will see this, but, as this is something I feel strongly about, I hope it at least will be read. Full discloser, I love Templar, so of-course I want to see it stronger.

Aetheric Lancer Set: Two current pain points.
1. The area you need to stand in to fire the proc is very small. In PvE or parsing this isn't really an issue, but in the high movement of PvP it becomes a serious obstacle. Please consider increasing the size of the zone, or removing it completely.
2. For how difficult it is to farm + the mini game of finding the area to fire from, it ends up being just a far weaker version of Null Arc. Please consider increasing the damage done, or adding a buff/debuff that makes this set attractive. Something like a unique armor breach would be the direction I would go. Lances were armor piercing weapon irl, so maybe the proc can ignore all resistances or something.

Wrathsun Set: Two current pain points (This one is in a much worse state that Aetheric Lancer)
1. Difficulty of use. As I know you are already aware from the changes you announced previously, building and managing stacks is very difficult. Currently the only way to quickly build stacks is the Reflective Light skill, as each tick of the dps done over time counts toward building stacks. Please consider allowing this to build off of all Templar Skills. You could also play into the RP side of the set, and say it also builds stacks when you take damage. (A WRATHFUL Nova. ie building stacks of wrath)
2. Lack of effect. I really like this set, and have tried to make it work, but no matter what build I run it on it is always profoundly lack-luster in it's performance. As much as I enjoy seeing Novas drop on top of an oil shelf while fighting below, that's about all it has going for it. It's effects are almost completely psychological in nature. It doesn't move the needle. If the goal is to spread major defile the Dark Flare skill already applies it in an AoE. If the goal is to provide a high burst damage window then why can't we self synergize with said Nova? The only thing it brings to the table is Major Defile, and a weak AoE ground based DoT that in PvP players can easily move out of. The only way I have found to make this set work in PvE or PvP is in PvP to be running with another person who is actively looking for the Nova Synergy. (Paired with Dark Convergence, to create a pull, and the second person hits with their combo + synergy, and you Templar execute beam into them)
2.1 Please consider making the Nova Synergy takeable by the caster That would make this set useable in PvP at least, but it still wouldn't really bring anything to PvE. Maybe add something like increases all damage taken by monsters hit from fire dps for 20 seconds or something.

Conclusion: I really like these sets and really wanted to make them work, but the current state they're in makes choosing them a serious nerf over almost anything else.

randconfig · April 18

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

pluvioisaplanet wrote: »

Can we have a look at the Necromancer Class Flourish?

Ever since the change to corpses to have them despawn more frequently, this script has been very lackluster on Necromancer as there's just too few corpses around for the Class Flourish to use meaningfully.

I was wondering if it could have a similar condition to the new Class Mastery, Nothing Wasted, where consuming a corpse adds a stack for a duration.

Agreed. The Necro Class Script is hot garbage in 90% of content (basically anything outside of Imperial City where there are extended fights with lots and lots of mobs).

Making corpses despawn quickly heavily neutered this class script. What's even the point of allowing it to stack to 10 if you're basically never going to be able to get it above 3?

The stacks need to be additive instead of completely replacing whatever the previous value was, or at the very least, it should create a corpse every time, regardless of if there's a corpse nearby, AND apply the stacks.

There's really no reason to use this script anymore outside of hyper specific shielding builds.

This.

HMG_Spaun · April 19

So, what’s going to be done for Necro DPS? Cycle unending got gutted from 50 to 25% cap. Blastbones still is in a weird state with the other being Gravelord’s sacrifice. And we still have to wait two years before it’s class refresh. No adjustments to Corpseburster. It just seems like Necro is in a *** place and avoids any love from any update. Why do you hate the bone man?

TOONxTERROR · April 20

Ardent Flame
Lava Whip
Flame Lash: This morph no longer grants increased damage done after consuming all charges, as we have recontextualized damage into the Class Mastery system.
Molten Whip: This morph no longer grants increased damage done per stack, as we have recontextualized damage into the Class Mastery system.

If we're just removing subclass viability why is it even in the game. I returned to the game after 5 years when I heard I could finally fix the one part of dragonknight that I disliked the most, and that was it having no stamina aoe spammables. This change simply punishes me for fixing a problem that my main class fundamentally has, a problem that remains even after the dragonknight rework.

DietDrKelp2 · April 23

Empower numbers definitely need bumped up, that nerf is killing it. One-bars or HA aren't the best and just make the game more accessible for people or just casuals.

Bl4ckR3alm93 · April 24

Emeratis wrote: »

I hope this is the right place to talk about skill styles, it felt like the best place to potentially do so of the options on the list. I will say I appreciate the "no weapon override" version of molten and letting players choose, that's awesome to see. I also appreciate trying to give players green skill styles to replace the loss of the old poison morphs but I have two complaints about them overall.

1. While I like the green fire, part of what I liked about the original Noxious Breath was a cool orange/green gradient.
Original Noxious

PTS Green

I am not necessarily asking for this to be changed currently (completely green fire is cool and there is a need for it as a skill style imo), but I would like an offering of the orange/green gradient style in the future (as well as possible other gradients of orange/blue orange/purple or even color combos like blue/purple) for this skill style. It has a lot of potential and one of my dragonknights in character uses flames of various colors in dance and combat and I would like a way to represent that better.

2. I am disappointed that Hearthfire was not considered for a legacy skill style and I would like to see that changed/added. Ash Cloud was a very cool skill that was a big part of my dk healer's identity. I had hoped that with talks of legacy skills for DK we would maybe see a black Hearthfire skill style that could at least give us a little bit of the old look for Ash Cloud and I would very much like for it to be considered in the future if it's not in the scope of this pts.

They need to change this asap and/or give us the real Noxious Breath back. Everything being flame damage is so boring and i feel like pure DK builds is even more boring. I dont even really enjoy Dragonknights or the game much after update 49. Some changes need to be reverted back like Hearthfire getting 1 damage morph back, poison claw, noxious breath and poison passives. Also loosing the 5% damage done from seething fury Lash is a bad change especially for subclass DK. Theres definitely a favoritism going on for Pyromancer only fans and Pure Builds instead of a balance. An even better option would be the introduction to a 3rd skill morph on all skills in ESO

thepandalore · April 24

You still haven't provided enough information on the changes to Empower, Shadow Cloak, Tideborn, and Velothi for us to provide any meaningful feedback.

Oshea_OK · April 28

My scor oakensoul (subclasse) build on non-trail dummy is about 49-50k dps.
Same setup on PTS, with empowered at 100% is 42 dps.

So a big dps loss.

YandereGirlfriend · April 28

Now that pureclass Arcanist healer can provide perma-Force can we please do something more interesting with War Horn and Sturdy Horn (especially Sturdy Horn)?

gammelscroll · April 30

PvP on ps5 is dead cause of how OP DKs are. People queue up for BG just to see those same 10 DKs and just leave. Same for me. Cyrodil is dead. Nowone wants to play vs that broken class. Everyone is subclassing ardent flame. Something needs to be done @ZOS_Kevin
This destroys the fun in the game. And in couple of weeks there will be nowone left for BG queues. .

gammelscroll · April 30

How are the new Templar masteries supposed to do anything Vs a DK? Those masteries are a joke. You can't even var swap to heal before you are power lashed to death

PrinceShroob · May 7

This is, perhaps, not quite the place for it, but I don't foresee much activity in a thread for discussing this alone.

I have a question regarding the new feature that was added with Arcanist, skills which cost either Magicka or Stamina, depending on the caster's highest or lowest maximum resource. When Dragonknight was reworked, the class strangely retained the split-cost Lava Whip morph and had no skills whose casting resource depended on the caster's stats.

Arcanist having skills of this kind seemed like a kind of late reaction to pre-hybridization complaints from Stamina players (that they often couldn't use their class' defining skills), but Arcanist itself became a Stamina-focused class despite these skills due to a few issues (Cephaliarch's Flail costing only Stamina and Tentacular Dread costing only Magicka; if the first cost your highest resource and the second your lowest, that'd probably open up Magicka Arcanist as a playable build).

Do you consider this approach to skills--them having dynamic costs--outdated? Is the plan to phase out these kinds of skills entirely, or to keep them unique to Arcanist?

pluvioisaplanet · 12:40PM

From a PvE perspective, this is mainly aimed at trials, though some of the same problems apply to dungeons (mainly the problems with overload) where competing DPS options matter less.

On the Power Level of Sorc in Content
Sorc parses have always looked high on the dummy, but this has never translated to them being a top single-target option in actual content.

Power Overload

Power Overload is responsible for a significant portion of Sorc's dummy numbers. Taking a 200k sorc parse from week 4, without overload, parses would be closer to 180–185k which is very weak for such a single target focused class. It doesn't scale well and is impractical to use in content:

Overload cannot receive ultimate from group sources through sets like Cryptcanon's Vestments or Pillager's Profit, meaning you get no extra hits in content compared to the dummy. While other classes are chaining ultimates through burst phases, Overload simply won't keep up.
You need a large amount of ultimate stored for it to be effective, particularly when paired with the Shattered Paths Signet mythic.
Sorc has long been required to use their Atronach ult, which has significantly less single target potential compared to overload, in content to provide Major Berserk to the group, though the new DK class mastery covering this buff may ease that pressure going forward.

Group Buffs Being Used on Dummy Parses

Shocking Banner benefits Sorc a decent bit due to its high proportion of direct damage, plus the extra weapon and spell damage from Cavalier's Charge. Sorc gets to use banner on dummy because it can sustain it fine, and there aren't enough good skills to slot.
Traveling Knife with Assassin's Misery buffs Sorc significantly more than the banner, because Sorc's many direct hits and good base status chance benefits a lot from the extra status chance from Assassin's Misery. Other builds will catch up or surpass Sorc once this is factored into their parses

Sorc Ceiling vs. Other Classes
Strip away Overload, Shocking Banner, and Status Knife, and Sorc is left quite weak and behind almost all other classes, dragonknight, nightblade, and templar not even having any of the previous 2 mentioned group buffs on dummy. Meanwhile, other classes are going to get substantially stronger in actual content when you add these, and more, to their parses.

Comparing the higher sorc and nb parses from week 4:

Nightblade, as the main other single target focused class, doesn't have the benefit of Banner or Status Knife on dummy, and just adding these two to the current 193k Nightblade parse will put it past Sorc's 200k parse. Add other group buffs like Morag Tong, Pillager's Profit, and Cryptcanon, none of which Overload Sorc can benefit from, and the gap widens further. If we remove Overload sorc will be getting gapped way before adding any of these group buffs.

So we need either sorc to be significantly buffed, or for overload to be reworked to be more viable in content. As right now sorc parses heavily crutch on overload when it's not being used in content at all.

Possible idea for Overload?

Overload being impractical in content is the core of the problem, so one idea I've been thinking about is for Overload to consume a fixed 100 ultimate (similar to Werewolf) and empower the next 4 light attacks, rather than draining your entire ult reserve. This would let Overload Sorc benefit from ultimate generation in content and better compete with Nightblade in particular. The exact numbers matter less than the core concept: drain X ultimate, empower the next Y light attacks.

Edit: Adding some of my parses to demonstrate overload with banner and status knife, overload without banner or status knife, and finally no overload with banner and status knife. Gear and CPs stay the same, apart from dropping Signet for Warmask for the no overload parse. It feels impossible to get good parses on PTS with my latency, so these are lower than what they can actually reach, but the point is to show the difference between the options for sorc.

Overload, Banner + Status Knife 191k - https://imgur.com/gallery/u50-pts-week-4-sorc-overload-banner-status-knife-89kNc7x
Overload, No Banner or Status Knife 179k - https://imgur.com/gallery/u50-pts-week-4-sorc-overload-no-banner-no-status-knife-0bi8MNJ
No Overload, Banner + Status Knife 171k - https://imgur.com/gallery/u50-pts-week-4-sorc-no-overload-banner-status-knife-NOcqph6

Dracane · 6:38PM

pluvioisaplanet wrote: »

From a PvE perspective, this is mainly aimed at trials, though some of the same problems apply to dungeons (mainly the problems with overload) where competing DPS options matter less.

On the Power Level of Sorc in Content
Sorc parses have always looked high on the dummy, but this has never translated to them being a top single-target option in actual content.

Power Overload

Power Overload is responsible for a significant portion of Sorc's dummy numbers. Taking a 200k sorc parse from week 4, without overload, parses would be closer to 180–185k which is very weak for such a single target focused class. It doesn't scale well and is impractical to use in content:
Overload cannot receive ultimate from group sources through sets like Cryptcanon's Vestments or Pillager's Profit, meaning you get no extra hits in content compared to the dummy. While other classes are chaining ultimates through burst phases, Overload simply won't keep up.

You need a large amount of ultimate stored for it to be effective, particularly when paired with the Shattered Paths Signet mythic.

Sorc has long been required to use their Atronach ult, which has significantly less single target potential compared to overload, in content to provide Major Berserk to the group, though the new DK class mastery covering this buff may ease that pressure going forward.

Group Buffs Being Used on Dummy Parses
Shocking Banner benefits Sorc a decent bit due to its high proportion of direct damage, plus the extra weapon and spell damage from Cavalier's Charge. Sorc gets to use banner on dummy because it can sustain it fine, and there aren't enough good skills to slot.

Traveling Knife with Assassin's Misery buffs Sorc significantly more than the banner, because Sorc's many direct hits and good base status chance benefits a lot from the extra status chance from Assassin's Misery. Other builds will catch up or surpass Sorc once this is factored into their parses

Sorc Ceiling vs. Other Classes
Strip away Overload, Shocking Banner, and Status Knife, and Sorc is left quite weak and behind almost all other classes, dragonknight, nightblade, and templar not even having any of the previous 2 mentioned group buffs on dummy. Meanwhile, other classes are going to get substantially stronger in actual content when you add these, and more, to their parses.

Comparing the higher sorc and nb parses from week 4:

Nightblade, as the main other single target focused class, doesn't have the benefit of Banner or Status Knife on dummy, and just adding these two to the current 193k Nightblade parse will put it past Sorc's 200k parse. Add other group buffs like Morag Tong, Pillager's Profit, and Cryptcanon, none of which Overload Sorc can benefit from, and the gap widens further. If we remove Overload sorc will be getting gapped way before adding any of these group buffs.

So we need either sorc to be significantly buffed, or for overload to be reworked to be more viable in content. As right now sorc parses heavily crutch on overload when it's not being used in content at all.

Possible idea for Overload?

Overload being impractical in content is the core of the problem, so one idea I've been thinking about is for Overload to consume a fixed 100 ultimate (similar to Werewolf) and empower the next 4 light attacks, rather than draining your entire ult reserve. This would let Overload Sorc benefit from ultimate generation in content and better compete with Nightblade in particular. The exact numbers matter less than the core concept: drain X ultimate, empower the next Y light attacks.

Edit: Adding some of my parses to demonstrate overload with banner and status knife, overload without banner or status knife, and finally no overload with banner and status knife. Gear and CPs stay the same, apart from dropping Signet for Warmask for the no overload parse. It feels impossible to get good parses on PTS with my latency, so these are lower than what they can actually reach, but the point is to show the difference between the options for sorc.

Overload, Banner + Status Knife 191k - https://imgur.com/gallery/u50-pts-week-4-sorc-overload-banner-status-knife-89kNc7x
Overload, No Banner or Status Knife 179k - https://imgur.com/gallery/u50-pts-week-4-sorc-overload-no-banner-no-status-knife-0bi8MNJ
No Overload, Banner + Status Knife 171k - https://imgur.com/gallery/u50-pts-week-4-sorc-no-overload-banner-status-knife-NOcqph6

Overload is to me the primary fear of the Sorcerer rework. It has been with us since the start and is so iconic and unique. I am truly scared the remove it and turn it into a generic press and forget ult. It can only be hoped that they find better solutions. For instance I do not even understand why it still blocks ultimate recovery at all. Seems very outdated and unnecessary today.