Addressing U50 PTS Combat & Ability Concerns

ZOS_GinaBruno · May 8

Hello everyone!

Over the past couple weeks, we’ve seen a lot of great questions, commentary and feedback about many combat and gameplay-related changes that are currently on the PTS, and we’d like to take some time to give a bit more clarity on some current topics. Please note this doesn’t encompass every piece of feedback, but we tried to answer and address as much as we could!

Werewolf Refresh

To start things off, we’ve seen some general frustration that some of the Werewolf kit has been nerfed in PvE, leading to the skill line feeling like it is in a weaker state than what’s currently on live, to some. From what we have observed, Werewolves have been extremely strong on the PTS and have been dominating the damage parses. In general, Werewolves also benefit from a lot of things that aren't exclusive to just the Werewolf, and we don’t want to balance the Werewolf in isolation where you only get buffs from one skill line. We feel doing so would create a stale experience where you don’t get to build-craft with the Werewolf like you can with other classes, and there’s already a limitation of having one skill line.

It’s also worth mentioning that the way we balance is based around the “floor” and, more importantly, the “ceiling”. What this means is that when we are making adjustments, we consider if we can reduce the ceiling without harming the floor. In the specific case with Werewolf’s base damage, its floor is higher than most other builds and there isn’t as much wiggle room as there is with classes. We also compare stats against other classes, weapon builds, etc., and we leverage a lot of both internal and PTS data. The latter is typically a combination of data from ESO Logs and target dummy logs provided by PTS testers, and internally, we run extensive playtests covering a variety of content including dungeon runs, trials, solo arenas, and PvP.

We are trying to be a bit more conservative with the adjustments heading into launch and will absolutely be keeping an eye on this. We would rather err on the side of being conservative and possibly add small increases later, than start out too high and have to nerf things later down the road. We also don’t want to discount anyone’s feedback and will continue digging into what specifically is making Werewolf feel worse; please keep citing any examples you have from PTS testing, when possible. It does help us.

We’ve also seen some commentary that Werewolf continues to create some problem spaces with certain Class Mastery passives. What we can say is that some Class Masteries affect Werewolf in ways that we didn’t plan for, and this will be adjusted over time. Just to reiterate, the Class Mastery passives are part of the experimental content we’ve been talking about and they are all going through iterations. We wanted to provide a way for you to focus on just your class and be impactful without needing to worry about subclassing, but these are far from final. Our main focus is on the class refresh work, which is really addressing the core feedback and concerns with each of the classes. This also means the Class Mastery passives are a bit of a stopgap in the meantime and will absolutely be adjusted as the class rework continues.

All that being said, because these passives are a bit more generic, they are being used in ways that we never accounted for, including Werewolf benefiting from a lot of the passives in ways that we hadn’t planned for or considered.

We’ve seen a number of concerns surrounding the single-target burst potential for Werewolves, and what feels like weaker light/heavy attacks overall with reduced bleed damage. What we can say here is that Werewolves are not subject to the light attack caps that other classes have, plus their damage scaling is buffed. We also buffed bleed damage in PvE, but reduced it in PvP since we were getting feedback that it was overwhelming in that mode of play. The Werewolf, by design, should be terrifying as it’s running toward you. You’re going to be in trouble if it jumps on you, and you either run away or kill it. That said, we do want there to be a healthy balance and that’s something we are experimenting with more, in particular around separating PvE from PvP scenarios. Doing this is something we haven’t done much in the past, and we do expect there to be some growing pains. There may be times when we don’t get the numbers quite right, and this is where we’d like to continue to get feedback from all of you.

For those mentioning that Werewolf tanking and healing doesn’t feel like it’s been improved, we did buff defensive capabilities and gave more mitigation to make Werewolves tankier. You do need to pick the right morphs to get that harder-to-kill build, though, and you also need to pick one or the other. It’s not realistic or fair to make an unkillable build where you do a ton of damage and also heal yourself indefinitely; there needs to be a balance. If you’re feeling like the tanking experience is still lacking, we encourage you to continue sharing specifics to help us understand why.

As for the feedback about the lack of a ranged taunt, we totally hear you. At this time, we just haven’t found the right solution without reworking an existing morph and having that affect something else. Whatever solution we implement, we want to make sure it’s thematically appropriate as well (for example, Werewolves don’t use magic!)

Finally, in regard to Pack Leader feeling underwhelming, Werewolf healing isn’t really something we support and isn’t a fully fleshed-out experience. And as far as requests to use Battle Spirit to help offset the changes to PvE, we try to avoid situations where we are balancing PvE based on PvP issues or concerns, and vice versa.

Class Mastery Passives

As mentioned above, we’re far from finished adjusting Class Mastery passives and are actively going through iterations as we continue working on class reworks, which are taking priority.

Touching on Necromancer first, we’ve seen folks looking for clarification on what the issue was with Malevolent Promise in PvP. The reason behind this change was specifically when it was paired with Corpseburster, it was doing insane damage in PvP – far higher than is fair, especially with multiple Necromancers. Additionally, there was no counterplay, and certain combinations with this set created some really overwhelming and oppressive gameplay experiences. We did try a few other solutions such as a cooldown per target, or only one Necro in the group getting the buff and the other not. We exhausted a lot of solutions to try and improve the PvP experience, and this is where we landed for now. We will say it’s possible we may revisit this in the future – potentially when we start doing the Necromancer class refresh.

Nightblades have seen commentary that their Class Mastery passives feel weaker to those of other classes, and it doesn’t help with burst-damage or resource sustainability. We do want to note we buffed the Nightblade crit cap to be higher than other classes and this also applies to healing. However, there may be some specific subclassing builds that are overperforming, and we’ll keep an eye on this.

In general, Nightblades gained a lot from the PTS changes because we understand there is moderate room for improvement with their core kit. While we recognize some of these problems still exist, this isn’t something we can comprehensively solve until we do the refresh work for the Nightblade class. What we were able to adjust on the PTS helps, but it is intended to be a stopgap until the class refresh.

Similar to Nightblade, we’ve seen some feedback that the Sorcerer Class Mastery kit feels underpowered and not competitive with other classes. We’d like to better understand why some of you are feeling this way. In PTS Week 1, Sorcerers were actually doing the most damage out of all classes by quite a large margin; we did reduce the strength to account for that and later reverted some of the nerfs. Now, it’s worth noting that there is a bug with Sphere of Influence where it’s only applying its damage shield to one player instead of two, and it also doesn’t currently work with Daedric Refuge (this should be fixed in the next PTS patch).

For Templar, we’ve seen your concerns about damage sustainability and the damage passives generally not feeling as worthwhile as you would like, especially Judgement’s Brand in PvP scenarios. We appreciate this feedback and will keep an eye on it for future iterations. We may have been too conservative since the damage is separated between PvE and PvP, and we recognize it may currently be too penalizing for PvP situations.

General Class Feedback

As we continue working on adjustments for Update 50 and beyond, we will continue looking to you, our community, for feedback. We’ve seen concerns about ongoing issues with resource sustainability for Sorcerer; Conservation of Energy should be helping to solve this. We’ve also seen the concerns that Necromancers feel underpowered overall, and Nightblades feel lacking in PvP. Again, we’d like to reiterate that we are purposely being conservative with our changes since this is the first time we’re separating PvE from PvP, and we’d rather start with things a little on the weaker side and slowly increase than make them too strong from the start and later have to course correct with heavy nerfs. If you have specific concerns, such as with Grim Focus, we would love to get some more information about that and appreciate specific examples you can share from your testing/playing.

Thanks to everyone for your continued feedback and passion. We’re excited to continue working with you all to make ESO the best it can be!

Wuuffyy · May 8

This is considered to the week 4 summary, I assume?

Edit: Thank you @ZOS_JessicaFolsom, I look forward to providing feedback there/where possible!

ZOS_JessicaFolsom · May 8

Wuuffyy wrote: »

This is considered to the week 4 summary, I assume?

No, but we are linking to this in the Week 4 Summary. This was long enough that we wanted to give it its own post/thread.

React · May 8

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hello everyone!

We’ve also seen some commentary that Werewolf continues to create some problem spaces with certain Class Mastery passives. What we can say is that some Class Masteries affect Werewolf in ways that we didn’t plan for, and this will be adjusted over time.

I am sorry, but if you're aware that there are some extremely problematic interactions going on between werewolf and class mastery passives, why are you allowing them to go live in this state? It's good to hear that more adjustments are planned "over time", but as ESO players we know that the very soonest we can expect to see any changes are with the next patch, which is roughly 4 months from now(?). That is a long time to deal with extreme unbalance in regards to PVP.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

It’s not realistic or fair to make an unkillable build where you do a ton of damage and also heal yourself indefinitely; there needs to be a balance.

I mean this with no disrepsect what so ever. I invite whatever internal PVP playtester to come fight the 40-50k HP WW builds we have been testing and providing data for this PTS cycle. They absolutely are unkillable, do the highest possible DPS you can achieve in PVP, and heal themselves indefinitely with infinite sustain and extremely strong health-scaling heals. It's good that you acknowledge this is unfair because it absolutely is, but at the same time it's being allowed to go live in this state. Just very frustrating to see.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We do want to note we buffed the Nightblade crit cap to be higher than other classes and this also applies to healing.

I just want to point out that in PVP, this effectively does nothing. Due to critical resistance existing, your average player will have somewhere in the realm of 40-60% critical damage mitigation. This means that in order to reach the critical damage "cap" of 125%, you would need to build for between 165-185% crit damage to achieve that cap. These are already absurd values that are difficult or impossible to achieve without additional players providing buffs to you. For 99% of players in PVP, the increased cap is not something they would ever interact with.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Similar to Nightblade, we’ve seen some feedback that the Sorcerer Class Mastery kit feels underpowered and not competitive with other classes.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We’ve seen concerns about ongoing issues with resource sustainability for Sorcerer; Conservation of Energy should be helping to solve this.

From a PVP perspective, sorcerer has arguably the best class mastery passives out of any class. But conservation of energy in particular is healing for far too much. The blood magic scales on health, and with around 33k HP whilst casting every GCD, this passive is outhealing vigor by itself. When approaching 40k HP, it is dramatically outhealing vigor.

This is a bit problematic, and has been repetitively brought up by myself and many others across various threads, including the official feedback channels.

Would be great to see this at least addressed so we know why it is being left as is. In general, health scaling heals/shields in PVP are very problematic and always have been. I would urge the team to move towards reworking any health scaling heal to instead use the standard WD/max stat scaling forumla, as this would prevent many abusive scenarios where these heals drastically over perform.

Firstmep · May 8

Thanks for the post, however:

Malevolent promise: this kind of interaction with corpseburster already exists with skills that place a corpse at the targets feet like blastbones and empowered skull, and while it takes a little bit of aiming and timing, it's really not difficult to pull off. So I really don't see how this passive would be broken in pvp.

Nightblade and Templar: these cut in half penalties for pvp really should be re examined in relation to how the underlying passives would actually work in pvp.
Judgements brand only buffs templar skills, and apart from jabs, most other Templar damage is at least on a 2 second tick rate, at least for skills used in pvp. Radiant destruction hasn't been useful in pvp since it became dodgeable.
For nightblades in pvp, it's not realistic to reach the new crit damage cap without subclassing, and 5% crit damage is just not enough to make a difference, so this penalty makes this passive worthless. Even with the extra crit healing.
As for eye for exploitation, 1000 wpd when the target is basically already dead is really not great. Templars get 600 at all times regardless and again the damage reduction is never going to reach it's full value anyways.

These passives should be so powerful, that they at last put pure classes on par with subclassing however at the moment, at least for pvp, for the above 3 classes, this is notnthe case.
From.your wording it seems like you guys won't make any more changes, which I really don't get, as there is still 1 more pts patch, and you guys clearly at least read our feedback.

Wuuffyy · May 8

Speaking of @React - they do make some appropriate points. I identified, acknowledged, and fairly provided solutions for werewolf-related points here https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/692088/werewolf-tooltips-pvp-significantly-nerfed-from-live-proof (first comment/post 2) while providing some love back to the kit itself.

Additionally, I would love class masteries to better express my builds on werewolf... however if this causes the vast majority of builds that don't use them for werewolf to become non-viable (throw harsh adjustments), I would prefer they be disabled and something along the lines of a very similar 'here's 5, pick 2' system for werewolf to be attached instead so I can still better express myself while locking werewolf out of systems meant to assist struggling classes to 'parse'/'damage better'.

When going forward, before upending the kit itself- please consider these things first (even if a ~50% reduction so asthetics could stay but other options aside from these remain viable if you decide to make further harsh adjustments later down the line)

Edit: as mentioned in the other thread, the same goes for Signet.. I would like it but I don't want it upending my actual kit's balance (although I'd much rather see this Mythic go for werewolf due to the incredibly toxic interactions with werewolf being an ult with rampage, etc. and major/minors across the board pumping the status effects).

Wuuffyy · May 8

Here's the thing I believe regarding launching with werewolf with class masteries unhindered:

If we release them the way they are, 'lightning wolf' becomes the expectation (and contrarily becomes a major letdown if it is removed during a patch post-launch, especially for the casual playerbase and/or those that heavily enjoy aesthetics/RP...)-

This, whereas, 'nipping it in the bud now' leaves it unto the realm of 'we cut it for balance' with a promise to make the kit itself more performant (such as adding a more controlled version of 'werewolf mastery' within a live patch or 2).

It's exhausting to watch cycle after cycle, patch after patch that werewolf is, yet again, further nerfed in PvP despite each and every tooltip being decreased by 20-30% or up to 75% in duration, etc. (quick reminder: proof in forums url via comment above, main post) from live where its known to underperform while losing many auxiliary effects in the process in that same place.

Dracane · May 8

You mentioned not understanding why Sorcerer is said to be weak, and mentioned that its DPS was so high the first week.
I am quite sure the main complain people have about Sorcerer is its lack of group utility and cleave damage. Its damage having been the highest against parse dummies never had any real value to it, as Sorcerer doesn't offer the dearly needed cleave damage nowadays and also nothing unique to groups in general.

All Sorcerer offered anymore was Major Berserk through the Atronach; which Dragonknight received as a class mastery and does better than the Atronach. And the 6% spell damage from Calculated Defense or the recovery from Sphere of Influence don't do much to solve this when other classes already have more group utility to begin with, and get it boosted tremendously by their class masteries.

This is why Sorcerer is said to be weak; not because of some single target dummy during week 1. People have explained this at length in all of the feedback threads, so there is no way anyone can say they do not understand why this is being said.

Firstmep · May 8

React wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hello everyone!

We’ve also seen some commentary that Werewolf continues to create some problem spaces with certain Class Mastery passives. What we can say is that some Class Masteries affect Werewolf in ways that we didn’t plan for, and this will be adjusted over time.

I am sorry, but if you're aware that there are some extremely problematic interactions going on between werewolf and class mastery passives, why are you allowing them to go live in this state? It's good to hear that more adjustments are planned "over time", but as ESO players we know that the very soonest we can expect to see any changes are with the next patch, which is roughly 4 months from now(?). That is a long time to deal with extreme unbalance in regards to PVP.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

It’s not realistic or fair to make an unkillable build where you do a ton of damage and also heal yourself indefinitely; there needs to be a balance.

I mean this with no disrepsect what so ever. I invite whatever internal PVP playtester to come fight the 40-50k HP WW builds we have been testing and providing data for this PTS cycle. They absolutely are unkillable, do the highest possible DPS you can achieve in PVP, and heal themselves indefinitely with infinite sustain and extremely strong health-scaling heals. It's good that you acknowledge this is unfair because it absolutely is, but at the same time it's being allowed to go live in this state. Just very frustrating to see.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We do want to note we buffed the Nightblade crit cap to be higher than other classes and this also applies to healing.

I just want to point out that in PVP, this effectively does nothing. Due to critical resistance existing, your average player will have somewhere in the realm of 40-60% critical damage mitigation. This means that in order to reach the critical damage "cap" of 125%, you would need to build for between 165-185% crit damage to achieve that cap. These are already absurd values that are difficult or impossible to achieve without additional players providing buffs to you. For 99% of players in PVP, the increased cap is not something they would ever interact with.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Similar to Nightblade, we’ve seen some feedback that the Sorcerer Class Mastery kit feels underpowered and not competitive with other classes.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We’ve seen concerns about ongoing issues with resource sustainability for Sorcerer; Conservation of Energy should be helping to solve this.

From a PVP perspective, sorcerer has arguably the best class mastery passives out of any class. But conservation of energy in particular is healing for far too much. The blood magic scales on health, and with around 33k HP whilst casting every GCD, this passive is outhealing vigor by itself. When approaching 40k HP, it is dramatically outhealing vigor.

This is a bit problematic, and has been repetitively brought up by myself and many others across various threads, including the official feedback channels.

Would be great to see this at least addressed so we know why it is being left as is. In general, health scaling heals/shields in PVP are very problematic and always have been. I would urge the team to move towards reworking any health scaling heal to instead use the standard WD/max stat scaling forumla, as this would prevent many abusive scenarios where these heals drastically over perform.

Like in my post above, I do not understand why the most pressing issues can't be addressed now, before the patch goes live. We are not talking about visual reworks or massive overhaul, only some number crunching.

Mizael · May 8

I'd like some buff to templar passive for the damage, it feels like still lackluster

Erickson9610 · May 8

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

(for example, Werewolves don’t use magic!)

Yes, this is true. However, as Scribing affects both spellcraft and skillcraft, would this mean a Werewolf Scribing Grimoire is still on the table for the future?
@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Maybe this could allow for a ranged taunt?

MashmalloMan · May 8

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Nightblades have seen commentary that their Class Mastery passives feel weaker to those of other classes, and it doesn’t help with burst-damage or resource sustainability. We do want to note we buffed the Nightblade crit cap to be higher than other classes and this also applies to healing. However, there may be some specific subclassing builds that are overperforming, and we’ll keep an eye on this.

From a damage perspective, the Crit Cap increase in PVP doesn't do anything because moving from subclassing, you're giving up -20% or more Crit Damage by not having access to Animal/Herald/Aedric/Earthen, and you only get a base 5% in return. Crit Resist directly counters Crit Damage and the effective cap.

The current meta will have every player with 30~60% Crit Resist, this is from base 20%, 10% from 5x Impen, 10% from CP, and 20% from Rallying Cry. So basically everyone can build beyond 125% crit damage to at least 155%~185%, when you add another 30% for the NB Mastery they gain nothing because it's not feasibly possible to reach the 185%~215% it would require. This is also considering that you don't have subclassing for the crit damage bonuses, only 5%.

Instead of 5% crit damage/healing and 30% cap.. why not..12.5% crit damage/healing and 15% cap.. go with the -50% route you have been doing.. otherwise this Mastery makes no sense to pick up under the current context of the game.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

In general, Nightblades gained a lot from the PTS changes because we understand there is moderate room for improvement with their core kit. While we recognize some of these problems still exist, this isn’t something we can comprehensively solve until we do the refresh work for the Nightblade class. What we were able to adjust on the PTS helps, but it is intended to be a stopgap until the class refresh.

Similar to Nightblade, we’ve seen some feedback that the Sorcerer Class Mastery kit feels underpowered and not competitive with other classes. We’d like to better understand why some of you are feeling this way. In PTS Week 1, Sorcerers were actually doing the most damage out of all classes by quite a large margin; we did reduce the strength to account for that and later reverted some of the nerfs. Now, it’s worth noting that there is a bug with Sphere of Influence where it’s only applying its damage shield to one player instead of two, and it also doesn’t currently work with Daedric Refuge (this should be fixed in the next PTS patch).

The problem with NB and Sorc is that you've built them up as singlet target DPS machines, but any time their DPS gets too high, the mob comes out with dummy parses, then you nerf them back down to the same level of other classes. This would be fine if there was any sort of compensation for cleave, but there isn't. NB, Sorc, and WW have by far the worst cleave in the game, so the only logical conclussion is they should have higher single target dummy DPS. You need to pick a side.

Frankly, I'm happy with the state of the Sorc Mastery's overall, especially for PVP, so I think that needs to be clarified. They have some very versatile Mastery's to pick from. I gather you're speaking about feedback regarding PVE, so on that subject you need to consider how that DPS is being produced and why people may have complaints about the initial nerfs:

Signet + Overload = Sorc is abusing this combination to output an additional 10~13k DPS while staying above 170 ultimate. Warden's Bear was being abused, yet you nerfed it with -50% damage, so why is this not a consideration too? This Mythic is way too problematic and needs a complete rework, it's also being abused on WW now, and those mains fear you'll nerf them over the Mythic like you've done with Sorc the 1st week. Please.. please, change this set.
Overload over Atro = Sorc in a group should be providing Major Berserk to their team, this is also a very clunky and unreliable skill no one wants to use in real content. I can parse 180k with Overload + Signet cheese, swapping to Atro I lose over 15k DPS and I'm back down to 165k without any of the cleave other classes bring.
Monolith + Liquid Lightning = Set is very strong, but situtationally useful. Sometimes the damage won't do anything, 1 Monolith doesn't deal damage and only gives 100 w/s damage, 3 gives 300 w/s damage, but is nearly impossible to keep up with 100% uptime, so on average you'll bounce between 2~3 for an ongoing parse. It's stationary and requires Liquid Lightning, a skill that barely does 3% of a parse, while Monolith can do 6~7%. Borderline parse cheese.
No Cleave = Sorc, NB, and WW are single target archetypes, they do not have strong cleave. I found an Arcanist parse that can do 155k with 120k as aoe, so 77%. Sorc can do 180k with 30k as aoe using the Overload + Signet cheese, so only 17% aoe. NB and WW is probably just as, if not worse, you need to be comfortable with these playstyles excelling on a dummy, you can't just nerf them down to the same level as other classes and expect it to be fair. There have been meta's where NB/Sorc were the highest DPS, but because they provided no cleave or additional support, they were never used in trial comps.
Throwing Knife + Status Effect Chance = Too expensive to use in real content, you'll run out of resources in 20 seconds, people are parsing with it only becasue Signet is overpowered in conjunction with Overload, making unrealistic DPS via crazy status effect procs.
Static Reverb + Pets = Doesn't feel good. Stop putting red tape on pet vs no pet, Sorc's don't like this, so I really... really.. hope you take this into consideration for the rework. We want a class set, flourish, and passives that work with 100% value 100% of the time regardless of a pet or not. This is coming from someone who doesn't like pets, but I don't want to be punished for engaging with them.

Thank you for the continued communication, can't wait to see what all the future refreshes bring.

ImPoStier · May 8

Why are you guys neglecting Templar so much? Everyone’s telling you the problems with it but nothing seems to be getting done about it

Sustain is terrible, it’s so much worse than any other class for some reason, can you not just make all their skills like 10% cheaper?
They have no good ultimate, can you not just make nova do more damage and make it cost less?
Their class mastery sucks, can you not just make it 2k?
Templar is not even close to the edge of being broken in PvP they don’t even need their mastery passives balanced with battle spirt that’s how weak Templar is

Are these problems too hard to solve? I would love to know why you can’t just tweak the numbers a bit, it seems so easy to get Templar in a good spot

pluvioisaplanet · May 8

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Signet + Overload = Sorc is abusing this combination to output an additional 10~13k DPS while staying above 170 ultimate. Warden's Bear was being abused, yet you nerfed it with -50% damage, so why is this not a consideration too? This Mythic is way too problematic and needs a complete rework, it's also being abused on WW now, and those mains fear you'll never them over the Mythic like you've done with Sorc.

Overload over Atro = Sorc in a group should be providing Major Berserk to their team, this is also a very clunky and unreliable skill no one wants to use in real content. I can parse 180k with Overload + Signet cheese, swapping to Atro I lose over 15k DPS and I'm back down to 165k without any of the cleave other classes bring.

Monolith + Liquid Lightning = Set is very strong, but situtationally useful. Sometimes the damage won't do anything, 1 Monolith doesn't deal damage and only gives 100 w/s damage, 3 gives 300 w/s damage, but is nearly impossible to keep up with 100% uptime, so on average you'll bounce between 2~3 for an ongoing parse. It's stationary and requires Liquid Lightning, a skill that barely does 3% of a parse, while Monolith can do 6~7%. Borderline parse cheese.

No Cleave = Sorc, NB, and WW are single target archetypes, they do not have strong cleave. I found an Arcanist parse that can do 155k with 120k as aoe, so 77%. Sorc can do 180k with 30k as aoe, only 17%. NB and WW is probably just as, if not worse, you need to be comfortable with these playstyles excelling on a dummy, you can't just nerf them down to the same level as other classes and expect it to be fair. There have been meta's where NB/Sorc were the highest DPS, but because they provided no cleave or additional support, they were never used in trial comps.

Throwing Knife + Status Effect Chance = Too expensive to use in real content, you'll run out of resources in 20 seconds, people are parsing with it only becasue Signet is overpowered in conjunction with Overload, making unrealistic DPS via crazy status effect procs.

Static Reverb + Pets = Doesn't feel good. Stop putting red tape on pet vs no pet, Sorc's don't like this, so I really... really.. hope you take this into consideration for the rework. We want a class set, flourish, and passives that work with 100% value 100% of the time regardless of a pet or not. This is coming from someone who doesn't like pets, but I don't want to be punished for engaging with them.

I just want to echo the points about sorc here, sorc parses have always looked high on the dummy, but this has never led to them being the top single target parse options in content.

The problems with Power Overload and why we say it's impractical to use in content:

Due to its nature as a toggle, and not being able to receive ultimate from group members through the use of sets like Cryptcanon's Vestments and Pillager's Profit, you don't gain any extra damage in content from power overload compared to on the dummy because you won't be getting more hits with it. While other classes are dropping ultimates back to back for burst phases, Overload will not keep up.
Again the problem with it being a toggle, you need a lot of ultimate stored up for it to be good, especially if you plan to use it with the Shattered Paths Signet mythic, in which case it's barely worth using if you have less than 400 ultimate stored up.
Sorc has for a long time been required to use either morph of their Atronach ultimate in content, to provide major berserk to the group, which now may be replaced with the DK class mastery that provides this group buff, so this may be less of a pain ponit.

Edit: Possible suggestions for making Overload usable, therefore making sorc parses not fake
A possible temporary fix would be removing the restrictions preventing ultimate gain through group sources. I think a good way to approach overload would be to have it consume 100 ultimate (It costs 25 ultimate per light attack at base), similar to the werewolf ultimate where you only use 100 ultimate instead of your entire ultimate reserves, and then have your next 4 light attacks be overload light attacks, that way overload sorc will be able to make use of ultimate generation in content and will allow them to better compete with nightblade. The exact numbers aren't important, just the rough idea of "Drain [x] ultimate, empowers next [y amount] light attacks"

Why high sorc parses don't translate to content:
Sorc parses are inflated by Power Overload, Shocking Banner, and Status Knife. Overload I already went over, but buffs like Shocking Banner and Status Knife will be available to other classes in content as well. Nightblade parses are essentially unbuffed on the dummy and has potential to gain significant damage from stuff like Traveling Knife with Warrior's Opportunity, Morag Tong, Shock or Martial Banner, and Assassin's Misery.

Group buffs that other classes don't parse with on the dummy, that sorc does:

Shocking Banner, sorc has almost entirely direct damage so it gets a nice buff from this, along with the little bit of extra weapon and spell damage from Cavalier's Charge which gets further boosted by all the weapon and spell damage modifiers you have access to on sorc. But in a group, everyone else will also have the benefit from the Banner's Focus Script. This will already help to close the gap between sorc and other classes, particularly nightblade which is what it should be compared to.
Traveling Knife with Assassin's Misery also buffs sorc quite significantly, more than the banner even, because of sorc having so many direct hits with a good base status chance, the extra status chance from assassin's misery is very good. So even though this parse linked looks very high, it won't scale as much in content as other builds, and other builds will catch up or even surpass this.

Let's compare sorc to nightblade as the other highly single target focused class.

Even if sorc matches or slightly exceeds nightblade on the dummy, nightblade will gap sorc in content. Adding just a Banner and one buffing Traveling Knife to the current 193k nightblade parse will put it past sorc's current 200k parse. Add Morag Tong, Pillager's Profit, and Cryptcanon, none of which Overload Sorc can benefit from, and the gap widens further.

Decimus · May 8

A good summary and I'm happy that all feedback has been received.

One thing I didn't see mentioned but hope the developers are also aware of is how much the Shattered Paths Signet mythic is currently inflating testing results, with builds that have a lot of status effects (jabs, ele sus, crushing shock/force pulse, werewolf abilities etc) or skill lines/passives that buff stats effects disproportionately and take that into consideration.

Even various Class Mastery passives are heavily impacted by this mythic, such as the Warden Wild Adaptation granting full value (1665 Weapon/Spell Damage) to status builds and buffing Glacial Presence passive's Chilled Base Damage increase, which then gets massive multiplicative buff from the Signet.

Another example of a passive that already received some nerfs on the PTS which is benefitting a lot from Signet is Static Reverberation - you're basically doubling the value of this passive when it also quite often procs Concussed.

Besides that, as others have already mentioned the Critical Damage Cap increase for nightblades doesn't really do too much in PvP, since without crit bonuses from subclassing you're not getting past that 125%, even if fully committing to crit damage. Besides that, none of the nightblade passives really make an impact when it comes to sustain or survivability similar to what other classes are getting, making it feel like nightblade lacks in every regard when it comes to PvP.

Regarding Malevolent Promise's interaction with Corpseburster, I can see the worry behind this if the damage output with Detonating Siphon spam on target was too high in internal testing. I don't think other interactions are troublesome however, as casting Graveyard or Deaden Pain to consume the corpse isn't really a high value global cooldown offensively.
Note: hoping for more valuable corpse consumer abilities when necromancer rework is due.

Thank you for these summaries, helps a lot to understand the direction.

Aylish · May 8

While we recognize some of these problems still exist, this isn’t something we can comprehensively solve until we do the refresh work for the Nightblade class.

You stated that Class Mastery was meant to buff (or nerf) classes to balance even before their refresh is released. You can easily change class masteries after the class refresh is finished, so this is not an excuse for leaving NB underperforming before their refresh, which is gonna be happening late 2027…

Pelican · May 8

Dear ZOS Combat Balance team,

Judging from how the section on Werewolf is longer than everything else combined, I see that there has been a significant effort to address the issues around Werewolf.

You have probably already seen my video or many of my pvp CMX posts shared by various other testers here, which seemed to have caused quite a stir. I have refrained from commenting on any of the feedback threads so far, just simply providing the video and CMX evidence for others to make their own judgements, but I feel its about time I gave my own feedback.This will be my one and only post on the PTS feedback forums.

To start things off, we’ve seen some general frustration that some of the Werewolf kit has been nerfed in PvE, leading to the skill line feeling like it is in a weaker state than what’s currently on live, to some. From what we have observed, Werewolves have been extremely strong on the PTS and have been dominating the damage parses.

I am not sure where the notion of werewolf being "weaker than live" came from, but yes, the observation that Werewolves are dominating the damage parses is absolutely right. Are they better than everything else? No. Does that mean they're not strong enough? Absolutely not. You can easily achieve over 180k DPS, on a one bar build that requires little effort to use compared to traditional setups. Please show a LIVE werewolf parse that can do even HALF of that. For reference, just a year or two ago, 110-120k DPS was already considered top tier and more than enough for most serious end-game leaderboard content.

In general, Werewolves also benefit from a lot of things that aren't exclusive to just the Werewolf, and we don’t want to balance the Werewolf in isolation where you only get buffs from one skill line. We feel doing so would create a stale experience where you don’t get to build-craft with the Werewolf like you can with other classes, and there’s already a limitation of having one skill line.

You guys are absolutely on the right track. Werewolf does benefit from a lot of overpowered things that everyone can use, sometimes these things benefit werewolf way more than other classes. So please consider this when addressing either the "overpowered things" or werewolf:

Are these things overpowered all across the board, not just on werewolf?
Yes -> You might want to address the thing itself.
No -> You might want to address werewolf or its interaction with said thing. Not restrict werewolf from using it.

You are absolutely right that werewolf, or anything for that matter, shouldn't be balanced in isolation. That's just a lazy bandaid fix that does not address the core issue and I am glad the devs are aware that it is a terrible decision.

It’s also worth mentioning that the way we balance is based around the “floor” and, more importantly, the “ceiling”. What this means is that when we are making adjustments, we consider if we can reduce the ceiling without harming the floor. In the specific case with Werewolf’s base damage, its floor is higher than most other builds and there isn’t as much wiggle room as there is with classes.

Balancing around the ceiling more than the floor is how you ensure you don't end up with incredibly overpowered builds; pretty much every competitive game balances around what the top players can do, not what casuals are happy with. You do not design a bridge based on its average load, you design it based on the heaviest load it will realistically face.

Balancing around the floor is how you ensure the vast majority of players can still enjoy the game. The average player should be viable and still be able to feel effective even without optimising anything, but not overperform by default with low-effort play just because the skill floor is so high.

ESO isn't a competitive game and never will be, the vast majority of its player base is casual. But that doesn't mean we should balance around the floor. The ones who are going to suffer the most if overpowered broken builds are allowed rampant are ironically, the casuals themselves. It is good that the combat team recognises this and prioritise ceiling-based balance more.

We’ve also seen some commentary that Werewolf continues to create some problem spaces with certain Class Mastery passives. What we can say is that some Class Masteries affect Werewolf in ways that we didn’t plan for, and this will be adjusted over time.

The main reason why certain Classes feel terrible for werewolf is because hardly any of their passives / masteries are applicable in ww form. Any passive that requires something like "When you proc this passive that can only be procced by a class skill" is automatically useless because you cannot do that in werewolf form, while any passive that does not require a class specific proc condition retains its full power. If you truly want to balance Class Masteries for werewolf without straight up disabling them for werewolf (which would be a terrible idea for build diversity), then you need to change some of the proc conditions of these masteries.

we do want there to be a healthy balance and that’s something we are experimenting with more, in particular around separating PvE from PvP scenarios. Doing this is something we haven’t done much in the past, and we do expect there to be some growing pains.

Balancing PVE and PVP separately is something that should've been done a decade ago. You can never balance the both together. We are happy to see the effort being made.

For those mentioning that Werewolf tanking and healing doesn’t feel like it’s been improved, we did buff defensive capabilities and gave more mitigation to make Werewolves tankier. You do need to pick the right morphs to get that harder-to-kill build, though, and you also need to pick one or the other. It’s not realistic or fair to make an unkillable build where you do a ton of damage and also heal yourself indefinitely; there needs to be a balance.

Yes you did. Exceedingly much I would say. All you need to do to be tanky on werewolf now in PVP is stack into health, and you will have healing that rivals traditional burst heals ON A DAMAGE SPAMMABLE. And let's not forget that werewolf has practically infinite sustain now, with extremely cheap skills, a magicka heal that gives you back 6k stamina, and an ultimate that lets you cast everything for free for 50% of the time you're in form.

Yes, you do indeed need to pick the right morphs to be "tanky", but these same morphs also allow you do to an absurd amount of damage skill while being unkillable. And yes, it is absolutely unfair that this is possible.

React wrote: »

I mean this with no disrepsect what so ever. I invite whatever internal PVP playtester to come fight the 40-50k HP WW builds we have been testing and providing data for this PTS cycle. They absolutely are unkillable, do the highest possible DPS you can achieve in PVP, and heal themselves indefinitely with infinite sustain and extremely strong health-scaling heals. It's good that you acknowledge this is unfair because it absolutely is, but at the same time it's being allowed to go live in this state. Just very frustrating to see.

As React has pointed out, I will be more than happy to demonstrate first-hand how absurdly overpowered Werewolf still is to any internal PVP playtester or anybody here who still has doubts about Werewolf's strength, feel free to contact me in DMs. I will also gladly assist the combat team in playtesting and combat balance in this respect, and answer any questions they have or conduct thorough testing however they wish.

As mentioned earlier, this will be my only post. I will only respond if a staff member responds.

CameraBeardThePirate · May 8

Why not simply disable the use of Corpseburster if Malevolent Promise is active? Landing Corpseburster in PvE is not really an issue and as such, Malevolent Promise will almost certainly not be used in Corpseburster PvE DPS builds in place of either of the damaging passives.

You already have Pyrebrand interacting with DK's class masteries, so I don't see why this option wasn't at least tested in the PTS.

Emeratis · May 8

Aylish wrote: »

While we recognize some of these problems still exist, this isn’t something we can comprehensively solve until we do the refresh work for the Nightblade class.

You stated that Class Mastery was meant to buff (or nerf) classes to balance even before their refresh is released. You can easily change class masteries after the class refresh is finished, so this is not an excuse for leaving NB underperforming before their refresh, which is gonna be happening late 2027…

This is exactly what I came here to say. Every other class gets to feel decently powerful before their refresh and nightblade has to just...wait?

Soarora · May 8

You guys do realize you can't balance AoE and single target damage the same, right? Even if Nightblade was the highest parsing class (it should be, since it's so single-target), that won't necessarily make it competitive with AoE classes like DK and arcanist in most content. So why does it have to be the most single target AND low parsing?

Poss · May 8

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Touching on Necromancer first, we’ve seen folks looking for clarification on what the issue was with Malevolent Promise in PvP. The reason behind this change was specifically when it was paired with Corpseburster, it was doing insane damage in PvP – far higher than is fair, […]

Not trying to sound disrespectful but corro DKs are currently hitting in excess of 30k whips so define “fair”?

Lord_Hev · May 8

Malevolent promise being "too oppressive" with corpseburster, but everyone having access to focused efforts via shattered signet mythic and creating a pvp ecosystem that is akin to an fps shooter is not oppressive?

Alaztor91 · May 8

Poss wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Touching on Necromancer first, we’ve seen folks looking for clarification on what the issue was with Malevolent Promise in PvP. The reason behind this change was specifically when it was paired with Corpseburster, it was doing insane damage in PvP – far higher than is fair, […]

Not trying to sound disrespectful but corro DKs are currently hitting in excess of 30k whips so define “fair”?

ZOS: We still have nightmares of the old Harmony + Grave Robber Necros, but instead of reworking Malevolent Promise into something else we are just going to disable it for PvP. We may or may not change it in the future, have fun!!!

Being the only Class(afaik) with the privilege of having a passive that does nothing on 1 game mode isn't really making me hopeful for the rework.

MashmalloMan · May 8

Alaztor91 wrote: »

Poss wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Touching on Necromancer first, we’ve seen folks looking for clarification on what the issue was with Malevolent Promise in PvP. The reason behind this change was specifically when it was paired with Corpseburster, it was doing insane damage in PvP – far higher than is fair, […]

Not trying to sound disrespectful but corro DKs are currently hitting in excess of 30k whips so define “fair”?

ZOS: We still have nightmares of the old Harmony + Grave Robber Necros, but instead of reworking Malevolent Promise into something else we are just going to disable it for PvP. We may or may not change it in the future, have fun!!!

Being the only Class(afaik) with the privilege of having a passive that does nothing on 1 game mode isn't really making me hopeful for the rework.

To be fair, Masteries were thrown together relatively late in the game, obviously when they decided to add the 15% Monster Damage to DK's Whip which happened in week 3 or 4 of last PTS. In their dev stream a month later when Gilliam showed the first tease of them, he said he had been hard at work on them for the past 2~3 weeks.

They're probably the best combat balance change they've done in the past 12 years and they came up with it in less than 3 months, so have hope.

YandereGirlfriend · May 8

If you believe that having multiple Malevolent Necros with Corpseburster is problematic and cannot go into the game then you should 1000% look into the current Pulseganking meta that has been supercharged with Signet.

Outnumbered instakills with zero opportunity for counterplay because the entire damage gimmick is status effects being spammed from 35+ meters range.

What is good for the goose is good for the gander, after all. Please look into reigning that in because, for as bad as it is now, it will get much worse in the next patch.

Dracane · May 8

Poss wrote: »

DKs are currently hitting in excess of 30k whips so define “fair”?

I hope you made this up.

ArctosCethlenn · May 8

It isn't terribly shocking that grim focus is a bit of a mess for balance, it is extremely high burst, and a bit of a pubstomper skill. Shifting some of the damage around so its less pure burst could do a lot to make it less punishing, esp. now that we can all bank two shots to delete someone with.

I'd go for something like 70% direct damage 30% 4 second dot instead of 100% direct like we have now, but a bonus damage proc on light/heavy attacks could work too, since the nb has to weave to generate stacks to spend on the bow shot; if slotting merciless made your light attacks trigger an extra X damage proc and your fully charged heavy attacks an extra 2X proc, you could lower the burst of the final arrow by 5X, with the nb would gaining slightly higher sustained damage but not dramatically changed overall dps.

Ankael07 · May 8

How is Corpsebuster going to be a problem with necromancer groups when the set's damage doesnt even reach force shock and the mastery passive has 2 second cooldown?

acanca · May 8

ArctosCethlenn wrote: »

It isn't terribly shocking that grim focus is a bit of a mess for balance, it is extremely high burst, and a bit of a pubstomper skill. Shifting some of the damage around so its less pure burst could do a lot to make it less punishing, esp. now that we can all bank two shots to delete someone with.

I'd go for something like 70% direct damage 30% 4 second dot instead of 100% direct like we have now, but a bonus damage proc on light/heavy attacks could work too, since the nb has to weave to generate stacks to spend on the bow shot; if slotting merciless made your light attacks trigger an extra X damage proc and your fully charged heavy attacks an extra 2X proc, you could lower the burst of the final arrow by 5X, with the nb would gaining slightly higher sustained damage but not dramatically changed overall dps.

Is any one complaining about grim resolve? Feels like it stopped being relevant much since dk rework

Personofsecrets · May 8

Builds having extreme damage, sustain, and survivability has always been an issue in ESO. Since when has anything been done about that?

KahunaKhan · May 8

It is such a tease that Necromancer can tag enemy players as a corpse in Vengeance but not in conventional pvp.

Other people have already mentioned that, comparatively, the shattered paths mythic already allows more or less the same oppressive game play cited as justification for un-pvp-ing Malevolent Promise.

It is what it is.

As much as I don't want to wait, when the Necromancer refresh comes around-- do it justice @ZOS_JessicaFolsom and thank you for following up on it