Was biting jabs nerfed?

RoCoL

starkerealm wrote: »

Maverick827 wrote: »

NordJitsu wrote: »

Yup. People noticed this in the PTS.

And they didn't put it in the patch notes.

Yay!

Yeah, it really sucks when some of your skills get nerfed for no reason.

I'll say it again, the reason was probably to stop the bots from biting everything in sight. I'm speculating, but, you know, they were.

All the bot trains I saw, and reported, were using it so I would assume you are correct. I always tried to drag other mobs close to the bots and get them killed worked sometimes!

driosketch

RoCoL wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Maverick827 wrote: »

NordJitsu wrote: »

Yup. People noticed this in the PTS.

And they didn't put it in the patch notes.

Yay!

Yeah, it really sucks when some of your skills get nerfed for no reason.

I'll say it again, the reason was probably to stop the bots from biting everything in sight. I'm speculating, but, you know, they were.

All the bot trains I saw, and reported, were using it so I would assume you are correct. I always tried to drag other mobs close to the bots and get them killed worked sometimes!

My main is a templar, and I don't use the skill mainly because of this. (Feels dirty, lol) Though my templar is a healer build so I'm not really missing it.

fenweeneb18_ESO

yet another stealth nerf.. tiresome.

dodgehopper_ESO

Actually, I have a gut feeling it might have been to deal with the fact that my Aedric Spear would lock up after a biting jab, and I couldn't attack, or use an ability, and mobs would just beat my face in while I tried to run away and let the game catch up to the issue. This problem is especially annoying in pvp. I'm fine with them altering Aedric spear like this, particularly if it means they are looking at the class and might deal with some passives issues. I really wish we had a self-healing morph as well like Dragon Blood. I don't mind the lack of controls, but that part is annoying.

As for the bots, I think the reason bots use biting jabs, is that they can all run in a line with each other, and the frontal target is being targeted in the same direction. Its easy to control and has a nice cone, other abilities might fly all over the place. Also, I suspect they can also program heals in place which make the entire team more survivable, all the while debuffing. I've seen the Templar mob trains, its stupid, but I don't think the spear was ever overpowered. Once people start playing the game for a while, I'm not convinced there will be much use for the botters. Its the incessant gold spammers that are making me angry. Two sides of the same coin maybe, but I'm tired of having to spend 30 minutes a day reporting these guys. I'd really like if they made it easier to report this infraction, and I'm really hoping they can do a massive ban hammer. It boggles my mind that the gold sellers can even get in. What are they doing, stealing game boxes and juggling funds from account to account? This is not a f2p game, you'd think this would be easier to contain.

smeeprocketnub19_ESO

RoCoL wrote: »

I was already leveling a level below my vet level so i had a reasonable chance of surviving. One monster encounter- great chance to live, 2 monster-good chance, 3 or more, or one troll or Antorauch, flip a coin. Now, not so much. robe wearing, healing spec Templar I am now getting crushed or barely living through 2 lowbie monster encounter!
- mini anchors used to be a challenge, now ill certainly have to avoid them all together as i just died no less than 8 times trying to destroy one.
- Its and awesome game- fix your bot issue dont nerf a struggling class

lol as a nightblade, vet rank 8, I can't solo mini anchors in the gold area at all. Haven't even tried since the patch. Trolls and atronachs weren't even a coin flip for me.

Welcome to things actually being challenging.

eduardo_goncalveseb17_ESO

i dont know who is the individual leading the game play experience department or w/e.. but taking the fun out of the game for so many people wont bring anything good for you, for the company you are working for, and much less for the future of the game itself.

Se.. when someone screws ppls fun, ppl go away and dont look back.. ever.

Mortosk

This is a horrible change. It completely messes up the feel of my character, and it reduces my damage output significantly. The fact that it wasn't even listed in the patch notes makes it worse. Would appreciate some kind of response from an official. Is this an intentional major nerf of the Templar Class' only ability worth using in order to stop bots as some have suggested, or is it intentional? You could have at least increased the damage if you are going to add this delay. But, the fact that it completely destroys the feel of the way my character fights is the most disturbing.

Ezrith

My biting jabs work just fine, I'm using it right now and it feels the same as before. I don't have any delay and the dmg, if it was nerfed, still kills mobs as fast as before. Are you sure it's not lag for the delay?

starkerealm

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

Actually, I have a gut feeling it might have been to deal with the fact that my Aedric Spear would lock up after a biting jab, and I couldn't attack, or use an ability, and mobs would just beat my face in while I tried to run away and let the game catch up to the issue. This problem is especially annoying in pvp. I'm fine with them altering Aedric spear like this, particularly if it means they are looking at the class and might deal with some passives issues. I really wish we had a self-healing morph as well like Dragon Blood. I don't mind the lack of controls, but that part is annoying.

If that's the case, then we can probably chalk it's absence up to the patch notes being, persistently, incomplete.

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

As for the bots, I think the reason bots use biting jabs, is that they can all run in a line with each other, and the frontal target is being targeted in the same direction. Its easy to control and has a nice cone, other abilities might fly all over the place. Also, I suspect they can also program heals in place which make the entire team more survivable, all the while debuffing. I've seen the Templar mob trains, its stupid, but I don't think the spear was ever overpowered. Once people start playing the game for a while, I'm not convinced there will be much use for the botters. Its the incessant gold spammers that are making me angry. Two sides of the same coin maybe, but I'm tired of having to spend 30 minutes a day reporting these guys. I'd really like if they made it easier to report this infraction, and I'm really hoping they can do a massive ban hammer. It boggles my mind that the gold sellers can even get in. What are they doing, stealing game boxes and juggling funds from account to account? This is not a f2p game, you'd think this would be easier to contain.

I've actually gotten into the bot thing before, and this isn't a brush off, but dig up the Bots - The Technical Reasons thread if you're curious to what I've said. I'd link, but I am really tired, sorry.

At a guess, Biting was probably the highest DPS power of the starter abilities, hence all the bots went with that. Just like how they all gravitated to... not veiled strike, the level 1 assassination power at launch.

cody_ESO

Ezrith wrote: »

My biting jabs work just fine, I'm using it right now and it feels the same as before. I don't have any delay and the dmg, if it was nerfed, still kills mobs as fast as before. Are you sure it's not lag for the delay?

Definitely not lag. There's a (roughly) half second delay after the ability completes before you can do anything else, other than block, including cast jabs again or even light attack with your weapon.

This is the only ability I have (between two characters) that has this delay after the animation completes.

Mortosk

Ezrith wrote: »

My biting jabs work just fine, I'm using it right now and it feels the same as before. I don't have any delay and the dmg, if it was nerfed, still kills mobs as fast as before. Are you sure it's not lag for the delay?

There is no way you can think biting jabs is the same as the way it was before. So I am going to assume you are trolling.

Sakiri

starkerealm wrote: »

RoCoL wrote: »

driosketch wrote: »

Animation sync like with the interrupt bash. Basically you can't spam it faster than it takes to show anymore.

im not sure what your comment even means, in english. It is delayed, the animation, the spell, whatever, it is delayed. Dont say it takes 1.5 sec to cast if it takes 1.5 to cast with a .5 or 1 cooldown before doing anything else because its not just spamming the spell, i cant cast it and then follow up with melee strike without the delay as well and all that equals DEAD to a robe wearing wannabe healer type trying to level up in Vet land.

At launch every power could be spammed. There was no cooldown on any of them. (At least, none that I can think of.) So you could fire off biting jabs, and then fire it off again immediately, while it was still animating. Now, apparently, you have to sit through the entire animation before you can use it again or attack with a weapon.

Blocking still interrupts it.

Mortosk

I just died 3 times doing a V2 quest with this stupid delay. I have to re-learn how to play my character all over again, and he is so much weaker now than he was last night. And to you all saying it's half a second, it's a full second where you can do nothing but put up your shield and wait. The combat feels horrible, and this is extremely poor game design or an extremely lazy fix (or both). I hope and pray this was unintentional, because I can not fathom a developer trying this out and thinking it was acceptable after making this change. There's just no way.

tinythinker

I don't get the extra 1/2 second delay Cody mentioned, but it is a little slower waiting for the animation. There is lag now for me though which wasn't there a little while ago as I just popped back on (not doing AVA) and had the kind of slowness I sometimes get in massive PvP battles. As to whether the extra time for the animation completion matters, I cannot say until the lag abates and I get into a 3-4 mob fight.

But recall that it isn't just the the one delay, it is delay that is multiplied per each use in battle. So if you want to try to get those 3-4 mobs down a bit quickly before using your weapon by hitting them with something like biting jabs 3-4 times, the effect (however big or small) would be magnified per use. Will it be long enough to matter? Time will tell I guess.

galiumb16_ESO

Biting Jabs was already pretty weak because of the lack of ability to be blocking while using it, like all of the instance spells. This delay will pretty much make it a useless ability, imo. Rather slot something else.

idk

The stealth change to biting jabs is one thing but I am getting a delay when trying to use other attacks. Basically, using biting jabs leaves my Templar being able to only block for about a second.

Sakiri

I always assumed the bots were using it because it's a nontargeted frontal cone thing.

Having to aim abilities is annoying for bots.

RoCoL

galiumb16_ESO wrote: »

Biting Jabs was already pretty weak because of the lack of ability to be blocking while using it, like all of the instance spells. This delay will pretty much make it a useless ability, imo. Rather slot something else.

Wearing light gear and made to heal I used the aoe to help burn down trash and still live; I cannot do that now. Ive spent a bit of time now with heavy armor, sword and board and simply dont have the stamina or health to tank, nor do I want to tank. Besides that I lose the light bonuses and cannot effectively weapon swap from healer (the class I want to play) to wanna-be-dps'er-tryin-to-solo-level-with biting jabs!

Mortosk

I would like my skill points back, Zenimax. I do not want to use Biting Jabs anymore. You gave everyone else their skill points back for skills you nerfed, why not for biting jabs?

Mortosk

And I timed it. It takes 5.9 seconds to cast 3 biting jabs. Minus the 1.1 second channel time, that's 0.9 seconds delay between each cast. Just shy of a full second.

Nox_Aeterna

Honestly , unless someone comes with a build that can still uses said skill , im out.

I understand that with patches come nerfs and buffs , and that i should just move to another skill tree or whatever , but really , i dont want to , it is not worthy it now that i think about it.

I made a templar , because of the spear line , i dont give a damm about healing others , im not a healer , i dont have any intention of becoming a healer either.

After that , i get a ghost nerf for ... i dont even know it , this skill was not that good to begin with , it is top nothing lols , maybe it is the bots , maybe it is not , dunno.

Anyway , i really have no reason to do this.

So , anyone got a build , where you can still use the spears to give damage? Cause , it is not cutting it right now for me , but there are much better players than me out there , maybe someone figured one?

Mortosk

I timed it again .. This time I did 4 biting jabs. Timer starts when you cast first Biting Jabs timer ends when the 4th biting jabs activates. That took 7.4 seconds. Subtract channeling time (1.1) for 3 biting jabs you get 4.1 seconds. I didn't wait for the delay after the 4th, so that means 4.1 seconds left over for 3 biting jabs. That is more than 1 second of delay. That is 1.37 seconds. Please let me know if anyone else tried to time it and what their results were.

tinythinker

Mortosk wrote: »

And I timed it. It takes 5.9 seconds to cast 3 biting jabs. Minus the 1.1 second channel time, that's 0.9 seconds delay between each cast. Just shy of a full second.

OK, so yeah, if that's accurate, adding another 2.7 to 3.6 seconds per fight (assuming you use biting jabs 3-4 times in a row) is definitely significant for multi-mob engagements. Biting jabs would be noticeably less effective to set the table for other abilities/weapon use at rate, which may not always mean death for the player but if you are DPS racing it hurts.

Mortosk

tinythinker wrote: »

Mortosk wrote: »

And I timed it. It takes 5.9 seconds to cast 3 biting jabs. Minus the 1.1 second channel time, that's 0.9 seconds delay between each cast. Just shy of a full second.

OK, so yeah, if that's accurate, adding another 2.7 to 3.6 seconds per fight (assuming you use biting jabs 3-4 times in a row) is definitely significant for multi-mob engagements. Biting jabs would be noticeably less effective to set the table for other abilities/weapon use at rate, which may not always mean death for the player but if you are DPS racing it hurts.

You are correct, it is significant. So much so that it is game changing and reduces the skill to near uselessness. Certainly should have been worthy of a skill reset if it was intentional at the very least. BTW, I timed it again more accurately, and it's actually 1.37 seconds of delay after each biting jab. Fairly certain this is accurate, but I would like to know if others have similar results.

Westcoast14_ESO

Mortosk wrote: »

And I timed it. It takes 5.9 seconds to cast 3 biting jabs. Minus the 1.1 second channel time, that's 0.9 seconds delay between each cast. Just shy of a full second.

The two second per cast is interesting. Its similar to Flurry which advertised a 1.3 sec cast time, but takes 2 sec before you can fire a second one (or at least used to).

cabbageub17_ESO

Actually you have to taking biting jabs to even begin leveling the skill tree right? Basically Templars HAVE to take biting jabs. Even if it drops from their rotation.

Mortosk

cabbageub17_ESO wrote: »

Actually you have to taking biting jabs to even begin leveling the skill tree right? Basically Templars HAVE to take biting jabs. Even if it drops from their rotation.

Could have given me the point back I spent to upgrade it.

Tendeep

Wow, this is horrible now. This was one of my only Templar DPS skills worth using... and now in PvE it is bad, but in PvP its pure garbage... If bots were the reason for this stealth nerf, then fix the GD bots instead of crapping on our skills...

Mortosk

Westcoast14_ESO wrote: »

Mortosk wrote: »

And I timed it. It takes 5.9 seconds to cast 3 biting jabs. Minus the 1.1 second channel time, that's 0.9 seconds delay between each cast. Just shy of a full second.

The two second per cast is interesting. Its similar to Flurry which advertised a 1.3 sec cast time, but takes 2 sec before you can fire a second one (or at least used to).

It's actually 1.37 seconds of delay, I screwed up the first time I timed it. You need to time it as you are casting the first one, then cast 3 more, and stop the timer when it allows you cast the last one. Then subtract the 1.1 second channeling time for the 3 you want to evaluate. That gives you 4.1 seconds for 3 biting jabs left over, which means 4.1 / 3 = 1.37 seconds of delay after each cast. Can probably say an even 1.3 seconds though to account for my reaction time on the timer.

Mortosk

On the bright side, I now have enough time to get up and fix myself a sandwich between casts.