Giving NB 20 or 25% as in the original concept would have been too much for PvP.
5 % is too little.
I think around 12 %, which basically offsets the average loss from subclassing into 1 other offensive line, would be appropriate for PvP.
Crit damage is sadly among the most sensitive and conditional stats. On one hand it requires a good basis of damage and crit chance to work at all, but on the other hand it generates high returns due to its multiplicative nature and the way it scales burst. Giving NB access to this stat to offset subclassing makes sense, but maybe they should rather consider adding power by other means to this mastery, instead of just juicing up crit damage, e.g. by adding utility to it. I also don't think NB should just revolve around crit interactions.

The fact that Sorc masteries are on average much stronger and way less conditional is undebatable. And the reliability and uptime are huge aspects here, e.g., it is much less likely to have high uptime on eye for exploitation in PvP than in PvE, due to player behavior. Whether NB masteries are too weak or Sorc masteries too strong is a thing the Devs will have to decide. For me it is a simple thought experiment that just makes it clear how poorly balanced the NB masteries are:
Let's look at Nocturnal Inspiration. Arguably the most interesting NB mastery, as it allows a very specific crit and ult centered play style. But even if you'd double down on this and double your ult uptime, you wouldn't even have access to an ultimate that could rival the value that many Sorc masteries generate passively. Tightening your burst windows by better ult uptimes is in practice not giving you better value than drastically increased sustain/hps and good timing. Excellent defenses can easily translate into extra pressure, due to more generous offensive windows. The extra ult gen shortens the gap between bursts, but it doesn't translate into higher kill potential between resets. I honestly also don't think it should, but if you dissect NB masteries like this you will find that they simply lack application in PvP. And I even think that would be somewhat fine, as long as other class masteries would be at the same level.

As it stands class masteries simply aren't fair across the board for many different reasons, including scaling, uptime, opportunity cost and actually also class flavor. It is a genuine mess and I think they made the game worse. They especially put weaker subclass combinations at an even more drastic disadvantage, which was absolutely uncalled for, when balancing skill lines is ultimately required anyway. It seems that the Devs somehow think releasing a class rework all at once will have a better marketing value. But poor balancing between skill lines and poorly designed masteries are just a double hit on combat balance for a substantial part of possible specs. They made the game less appealing for me.

Nbs issue isnt really damage to be fair, or at least not damage scaling. Zos can't figure out how to make invisibility fair for everyone while also being a core part of nbs toolkit. This has a knock of effect for other things like healing and general tankiness. And ofc the fact bow proc is laughably easy to avoid.

Wuuffyy wrote: »

Prionyx wrote: »

Sorc's, DK's and warden's masteries aren't affected by battle spirit despite them being absolute best among all classes AND these 3 classes being strongest as is, even if class mastery didn't exist. Why are NB, necro, templar and arcanist masteries nerfed? There is absolutely no logical explanation to this, no answer from dev team. Just what color is the sky in the world of a person who thought that NB should have 5% crit damage while sorc can have unlimited sustain and a lot of wpd on top while being stronger than NB as is?

I have a counter-question-

what religious reason is preventing them from using 'in Battle Spirit' for many things in the PTS nerf notes this cycle?

They literally are?

Yep, just remove all the battle spirit nerfs in those classes. Agreed. Don’t instead jump to nerfing sorc please.

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Prionyx wrote: »

Sorc's, DK's and warden's masteries aren't affected by battle spirit despite them being absolute best among all classes AND these 3 classes being strongest as is, even if class mastery didn't exist. Why are NB, necro, templar and arcanist masteries nerfed? There is absolutely no logical explanation to this, no answer from dev team. Just what color is the sky in the world of a person who thought that NB should have 5% crit damage while sorc can have unlimited sustain and a lot of wpd on top while being stronger than NB as is?

To be fair, I was in the boat of "let Necro's mastery function in PvP", but as a Necro main, I see now that Corpseburster would be ridiculously powerful with that corpse mastery. It hits as hard as Blastbones does with at least 4 Grave Lord abilities slotted and Malevolent Promise would allow you to spam it, for free with Tether, for crazy damage.

That said, there's no reason they couldn't disable the mastery while wearing Corpseburster or have some other solution to prevent that specific combo because being able to Tether people in PvP would open up the doors for a lot of pressure builds.

They could've put a longer cd on it while battlespirit is active and still allow the passive to function.
Also you are giving up pound of flesh or nothing wasted for it, both extremely powerful passives

Firstmep wrote: »

Nbs issue isnt really damage to be fair, or at least not damage scaling. Zos can't figure out how to make invisibility fair for everyone while also being a core part of nbs toolkit. This has a knock of effect for other things like healing and general tankiness. And ofc the fact bow proc is laughably easy to avoid.

Damage is NB's second most noticeble issue after survivablity. Worst damage and worst survivability among all

Prionyx wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

Giving NB 20 or 25% as in the original concept would have been too much for PvP.
5 % is too little.
I think around 12 %, which basically offsets the average loss from subclassing into 1 other offensive line, would be appropriate for PvP.
Crit damage is sadly among the most sensitive and conditional stats. On one hand it requires a good basis of damage and crit chance to work at all, but on the other hand it generates high returns due to its multiplicative nature and the way it scales burst. Giving NB access to this stat to offset subclassing makes sense, but maybe they should rather consider adding power by other means to this mastery, instead of just juicing up crit damage, e.g. by adding utility to it. I also don't think NB should just revolve around crit interactions.

The fact that Sorc masteries are on average much stronger and way less conditional is undebatable. And the reliability and uptime are huge aspects here, e.g., it is much less likely to have high uptime on eye for exploitation in PvP than in PvE, due to player behavior. Whether NB masteries are too weak or Sorc masteries too strong is a thing the Devs will have to decide. For me it is a simple thought experiment that just makes it clear how poorly balanced the NB masteries are:
Let's look at Nocturnal Inspiration. Arguably the most interesting NB mastery, as it allows a very specific crit and ult centered play style. But even if you'd double down on this and double your ult uptime, you wouldn't even have access to an ultimate that could rival the value that many Sorc masteries generate passively. Tightening your burst windows by better ult uptimes is in practice not giving you better value than drastically increased sustain/hps and good timing. Excellent defenses can easily translate into extra pressure, due to more generous offensive windows. The extra ult gen shortens the gap between bursts, but it doesn't translate into higher kill potential between resets. I honestly also don't think it should, but if you dissect NB masteries like this you will find that they simply lack application in PvP. And I even think that would be somewhat fine, as long as other class masteries would be at the same level.

As it stands class masteries simply aren't fair across the board for many different reasons, including scaling, uptime, opportunity cost and actually also class flavor. It is a genuine mess and I think they made the game worse. They especially put weaker subclass combinations at an even more drastic disadvantage, which was absolutely uncalled for, when balancing skill lines is ultimately required anyway. It seems that the Devs somehow think releasing a class rework all at once will have a better marketing value. But poor balancing between skill lines and poorly designed masteries are just a double hit on combat balance for a substantial part of possible specs. They made the game less appealing for me.

Giving 25% isn't too much for pvp, even 35% wouldn't help NB to reach DK's level considering other class masteries are trash

I think making the other masteries not be trash is the better fix, rather than just giving loads of crit damage. But that is just my personal view.

acanca wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

Prionyx wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

Giving NB 20 or 25% as in the original concept would have been too much for PvP.
5 % is too little.
I think around 12 %, which basically offsets the average loss from subclassing into 1 other offensive line, would be appropriate for PvP.
Crit damage is sadly among the most sensitive and conditional stats. On one hand it requires a good basis of damage and crit chance to work at all, but on the other hand it generates high returns due to its multiplicative nature and the way it scales burst. Giving NB access to this stat to offset subclassing makes sense, but maybe they should rather consider adding power by other means to this mastery, instead of just juicing up crit damage, e.g. by adding utility to it. I also don't think NB should just revolve around crit interactions.

The fact that Sorc masteries are on average much stronger and way less conditional is undebatable. And the reliability and uptime are huge aspects here, e.g., it is much less likely to have high uptime on eye for exploitation in PvP than in PvE, due to player behavior. Whether NB masteries are too weak or Sorc masteries too strong is a thing the Devs will have to decide. For me it is a simple thought experiment that just makes it clear how poorly balanced the NB masteries are:
Let's look at Nocturnal Inspiration. Arguably the most interesting NB mastery, as it allows a very specific crit and ult centered play style. But even if you'd double down on this and double your ult uptime, you wouldn't even have access to an ultimate that could rival the value that many Sorc masteries generate passively. Tightening your burst windows by better ult uptimes is in practice not giving you better value than drastically increased sustain/hps and good timing. Excellent defenses can easily translate into extra pressure, due to more generous offensive windows. The extra ult gen shortens the gap between bursts, but it doesn't translate into higher kill potential between resets. I honestly also don't think it should, but if you dissect NB masteries like this you will find that they simply lack application in PvP. And I even think that would be somewhat fine, as long as other class masteries would be at the same level.

As it stands class masteries simply aren't fair across the board for many different reasons, including scaling, uptime, opportunity cost and actually also class flavor. It is a genuine mess and I think they made the game worse. They especially put weaker subclass combinations at an even more drastic disadvantage, which was absolutely uncalled for, when balancing skill lines is ultimately required anyway. It seems that the Devs somehow think releasing a class rework all at once will have a better marketing value. But poor balancing between skill lines and poorly designed masteries are just a double hit on combat balance for a substantial part of possible specs. They made the game less appealing for me.

Giving 25% isn't too much for pvp, even 35% wouldn't help NB to reach DK's level considering other class masteries are trash

I think making the other masteries not be trash is the better fix, rather than just giving loads of crit damage. But that is just my personal view.

The idea of 25% crit damage seems a lot less scary when you realize that an arcanist can keep up 20% crit damage for 12 people with relative ease tbh. I think at this point nb needs all the help it can get but i would honestly prefer if they started by giving the class something that makes it sturdier perhaps. I know they are supposed to have some class masteries that help with survival but it never felt strong enough when i tried nb.

Honestly at this point i cant imagine using nb as a pure class even with the upcoming buffs

That isn't the point. Giving NB the ability to break the crit cap and helping out with that at the same time is just entrenching the optimal play style. Currently you'd need good support or heavily dedicated builds to make any use of this mastery in PvP. Considering how bad crit res is distributed and not part of the PvE gameplay at all, this stat is also singlehandedly responsible for a completely arbitrary gearing philosophy in PvP, limiting build options and creating a high entry barrier for newer players. Giving this mastery enough value to offset subclassing would still synergize well enough with the crit support and internal damage mods NB has. The goal was to make pure NB work, not generally optimal or mandatory.
Maybe +-12 % won't seem a lot to some players, but I do not think that one mastery should bear the entire weight of lifting up the power level of a class. It is for sure too weak now, but so are the other NB masteries, as I said above.
Sure, a 5% buff won't fix the class as a whole. But fixing the class with one oversized damage mod is in my eyes a lazy and debilitating way of designing combat. That is exactly how we ended up with NBs entire class power budget being stuck in Spec Bow and Incap for years.
Also worth adding that unnamed % has a greater potential than the named Arca buff.

I'd rather see less CoE-level masteries and more gameplay defining ones.

Vaqual wrote: »

acanca wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

Prionyx wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

Giving NB 20 or 25% as in the original concept would have been too much for PvP.
5 % is too little.
I think around 12 %, which basically offsets the average loss from subclassing into 1 other offensive line, would be appropriate for PvP.
Crit damage is sadly among the most sensitive and conditional stats. On one hand it requires a good basis of damage and crit chance to work at all, but on the other hand it generates high returns due to its multiplicative nature and the way it scales burst. Giving NB access to this stat to offset subclassing makes sense, but maybe they should rather consider adding power by other means to this mastery, instead of just juicing up crit damage, e.g. by adding utility to it. I also don't think NB should just revolve around crit interactions.

The fact that Sorc masteries are on average much stronger and way less conditional is undebatable. And the reliability and uptime are huge aspects here, e.g., it is much less likely to have high uptime on eye for exploitation in PvP than in PvE, due to player behavior. Whether NB masteries are too weak or Sorc masteries too strong is a thing the Devs will have to decide. For me it is a simple thought experiment that just makes it clear how poorly balanced the NB masteries are:
Let's look at Nocturnal Inspiration. Arguably the most interesting NB mastery, as it allows a very specific crit and ult centered play style. But even if you'd double down on this and double your ult uptime, you wouldn't even have access to an ultimate that could rival the value that many Sorc masteries generate passively. Tightening your burst windows by better ult uptimes is in practice not giving you better value than drastically increased sustain/hps and good timing. Excellent defenses can easily translate into extra pressure, due to more generous offensive windows. The extra ult gen shortens the gap between bursts, but it doesn't translate into higher kill potential between resets. I honestly also don't think it should, but if you dissect NB masteries like this you will find that they simply lack application in PvP. And I even think that would be somewhat fine, as long as other class masteries would be at the same level.

As it stands class masteries simply aren't fair across the board for many different reasons, including scaling, uptime, opportunity cost and actually also class flavor. It is a genuine mess and I think they made the game worse. They especially put weaker subclass combinations at an even more drastic disadvantage, which was absolutely uncalled for, when balancing skill lines is ultimately required anyway. It seems that the Devs somehow think releasing a class rework all at once will have a better marketing value. But poor balancing between skill lines and poorly designed masteries are just a double hit on combat balance for a substantial part of possible specs. They made the game less appealing for me.

Giving 25% isn't too much for pvp, even 35% wouldn't help NB to reach DK's level considering other class masteries are trash

I think making the other masteries not be trash is the better fix, rather than just giving loads of crit damage. But that is just my personal view.

The idea of 25% crit damage seems a lot less scary when you realize that an arcanist can keep up 20% crit damage for 12 people with relative ease tbh. I think at this point nb needs all the help it can get but i would honestly prefer if they started by giving the class something that makes it sturdier perhaps. I know they are supposed to have some class masteries that help with survival but it never felt strong enough when i tried nb.

Honestly at this point i cant imagine using nb as a pure class even with the upcoming buffs

That isn't the point. Giving NB the ability to break the crit cap and helping out with that at the same time is just entrenching the optimal play style. Currently you'd need good support or heavily dedicated builds to make any use of this mastery in PvP. Considering how bad crit res is distributed and not part of the PvE gameplay at all, this stat is also singlehandedly responsible for a completely arbitrary gearing philosophy in PvP, limiting build options and creating a high entry barrier for newer players. Giving this mastery enough value to offset subclassing would still synergize well enough with the crit support and internal damage mods NB has. The goal was to make pure NB work, not generally optimal or mandatory.
Maybe +-12 % won't seem a lot to some players, but I do not think that one mastery should bear the entire weight of lifting up the power level of a class. It is for sure too weak now, but so are the other NB masteries, as I said above.
Sure, a 5% buff won't fix the class as a whole. But fixing the class with one oversized damage mod is in my eyes a lazy and debilitating way of designing combat. That is exactly how we ended up with NBs entire class power budget being stuck in Spec Bow and Incap for years.
Also worth adding that unnamed % has a greater potential than the named Arca buff.

I'd rather see less CoE-level masteries and more gameplay defining ones.

I get what you are saying but lots of classes have one class mastery carrying their damage right now. Look at warden, the 1.6k weapon damage one is a load bearing pillar, even if warden is basically gone with signet gone. For templars its the 600 weapon damage one carrying that load. For sorc its usually reverb over font but its usually just one or the other cause conservation of energy being way too overpowered means its never a good idea to give it up.

I think you tried making use of the nb class mastery as well right? On khajit with 12% crit damage race passive, 12% crit damage from dual axes, shadow and its crit damage, 20% crit damage from monomyth, 10% crit damage from rat and 2 crit damage sets you are barely able to reach the crit damage cap for pvp. This is such an insane build requirement that this class mastery might as well not exist for pvp. And honestly, what stings most is, it is basically impossible to use soulcleaver on your nb if you want to reach the cap with this mastery, that just feels wrong.

Wuuffyy wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Wuuffyy wrote: »

Prionyx wrote: »

Sorc's, DK's and warden's masteries aren't affected by battle spirit despite them being absolute best among all classes AND these 3 classes being strongest as is, even if class mastery didn't exist. Why are NB, necro, templar and arcanist masteries nerfed? There is absolutely no logical explanation to this, no answer from dev team. Just what color is the sky in the world of a person who thought that NB should have 5% crit damage while sorc can have unlimited sustain and a lot of wpd on top while being stronger than NB as is?

I have a counter-question-

what religious reason is preventing them from using 'in Battle Spirit' for many things in the PTS nerf notes this cycle?

They literally are?

Not to mention Core-of-Flame nerf, etc. affecting PvE albeit however tiny on that side.

So by "many things" you were only talking about Werewolf changes, and ignoring all the other things that they nerfed specifically in Battle Spirit. Gotcha.

Vaqual wrote: »

But fixing the class with one oversized damage mod is in my eyes a lazy and debilitating way of designing combat. That is exactly how we ended up with NBs entire class power budget being stuck in Spec Bow and Incap for years.

I just want to add onto this point, "fixing" any class with oversized numbers changes is just lazy and bad design and ZOS really needs to move away from it asap.

Just look at U41 Hardened Ward as another example for a different class. Instead of going into the class itself to remove a lot of the clunkiness, bugs, redundancies, and other issues Sorcerer has in its kit, ZOS just went and turbo charged the numbers on Hardened Ward (alongside further buffs to mag stacking at the same time).

It did technically allow Sorcerer to play alongside NB at the top of the meta back then, but it was such a lazy and band-aid fix for what was (at the time) much bigger issues the class had, which many still haven't really been addressed to this day (despite how good the sorc masteries are at covering up these issues).

I just wish the combat team would listen to the countless threads of reasonable feedback being given, there are some real gems outlining the core issues at play across the classes that need addressing, but even small steps to start towards making such changes never seems to happen.

Things like less reliance on Assassination to carry all of NBs damage when there's Strife, Drain Power and Cripple that could use some proper attention to enable more for NB beyond just spec bow + incap + max crit.

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Wuuffyy wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Wuuffyy wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Wuuffyy wrote: »

Prionyx wrote: »

Sorc's, DK's and warden's masteries aren't affected by battle spirit despite them being absolute best among all classes AND these 3 classes being strongest as is, even if class mastery didn't exist. Why are NB, necro, templar and arcanist masteries nerfed? There is absolutely no logical explanation to this, no answer from dev team. Just what color is the sky in the world of a person who thought that NB should have 5% crit damage while sorc can have unlimited sustain and a lot of wpd on top while being stronger than NB as is?

I have a counter-question-

what religious reason is preventing them from using 'in Battle Spirit' for many things in the PTS nerf notes this cycle?

They literally are?

Not to mention Core-of-Flame nerf, etc. affecting PvE albeit however tiny on that side.

So by "many things" you were only talking about Werewolf changes, and ignoring all the other things that they nerfed specifically in Battle Spirit. Gotcha.

What you said/rhetorically asked (as reminder)

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Wuuffyy wrote: »

Prionyx wrote: »

Sorc's, DK's and warden's masteries aren't affected by battle spirit despite them being absolute best among all classes AND these 3 classes being strongest as is, even if class mastery didn't exist. Why are NB, necro, templar and arcanist masteries nerfed? There is absolutely no logical explanation to this, no answer from dev team. Just what color is the sky in the world of a person who thought that NB should have 5% crit damage while sorc can have unlimited sustain and a lot of wpd on top while being stronger than NB as is?

I have a counter-question-

what religious reason is preventing them from using 'in Battle Spirit' for many things in the PTS nerf notes this cycle?

They literally are?

My answer: ALL of the PvP-focused werewolf nerfs and CoE nerf. Your response: ‘well yeah, but that doesn’t count because…’.

They aren’t. It’s selective if anything and they aren’t using that system in the capacity it’s meant for- in other words they aren’t using ‘Battle Spirit’, etc. to separate PvP-based changes from PvE.

You asked why they aren't using Battle Spirit modifiers for many things in the PTS notes.

I stated they are, because yes, they are using Battle Spirit for many of the nerfs this cycle. I never said they're using it for all of the nerfs, but you didn't either.

If the goal of using ‘Battle Spirit’ is to separate PvP nerfs from PvE, then they haven’t done that in at least 2 major areas that I’ve cited.

I would hope you realize this isn’t a personal attack on you but rather my plea for them to… do that, ya know-like actually use the Spirit of Battle©️ instead to rectify.

The amount of hate Sorcs get is insane.... the class can be good for literally one thing and the entire community turns on them until they are nerfed to oblivion and then ESO kills their game because all the sorcs (most populated) are gone.


Yay for the same cycle over and over!!

Vaqual wrote: »

I still don't think that masteries can fully replace gradual balancing before a big rework hits. Even if that means the rework would end up just being a visual refresh, and the combat relevant changes would be delivered piece by piece.

Completely agree. Would definitely prefer some small tweaks over just dumping stats into the current kit.

Assuming they have budget to do minor enhancements these would be my top 3 for pvp in order:

1) Manifestation of Terror - change the application and stun itself to dodgeable and single target on the same 2s delay instead of a ground AoE.
2) Mark Target - add a small dodgeable (but unblockable) delayed damage proc on the target at 3s after cast.
3) Grim Focus - convert the relentless focus morphs damage into a DoT.
Brief tangent on Grim Focus:
Should the above 3 changes be added into NB's kit they would provide a very strong baseline pool of mechanics to be competitive against the top end in pvp.

Luneca wrote: »

But the class reached this point because players repeatedly wanted to protect cloak rather than ask for buffs elsewhere and accept a reduction in it's power. It's literally just like Sorc in many ways (esp. the power of not allowing someone to target you) and how the entire class suffers because of one mechanic. Except I'd put sorc way ahead of NB because it is usable without Streak and has options.

I can't speak for other sorc mains, but if you go back to posts from around U36/37, I actually tried to put forward ideas to refresh Sorc (that included nerfs to streak such as completely removing the CC, or at least shifting it to a snare instead of a stun).

Unfortunately those changes were [snipped] upon by everyone (sorcs and non-sorcs alike) for either nerfing too hard or not nerfing hard enough respectively. It was at that point I gave up trying to compromise on streak, it doesn't matter what anyone tries to propose to adjust it, there's no change that can be made (even outright deletion) that will be enough of a nerf for non-sorcs, or any amount of buffs to the rest of the kit to compensate for nerfs to it (for sorcs).

It's a lose lose subject because of this, just like cloak is for NB, and one that I don't envy ZOS having to try and make for Sorcs (and eventually NBs) upcoming refresh.