1.6 Time to Kill tends to be much faster, detailed analysis

Teargrants

This was originally a reply to another thread, but I feel it warrants it's own thread after typing it all out.

1.6 has reduced the already short TTK (outside of certain specs) to much quicker for all specs. There's a number of factors I can name off hand that are all contributing to this problem.


- Health pools are all about 30% smaller comparably in relation to magicka/stamina pools and skill damage. 22k - 27k in 1.6 compared to 3k - 3.5k on live. This should come as no surprise, the devs stated quite a while ago that health would no longer scale in a 1.5 : 1 ration compared to magicka/stamina, but rather closer to a 1.1 : 1 ratio.

- Removed soft caps allow skill damage to be boosted through the roof. In my LA build I can easily get my spell damage to 2k, I'm sure the same is true for wep damage builds. Again, ppl should have seen this coming a mile away w/ removed soft caps.

- Light armor is now much more squishy, having both lower spell resist and armor in relation to the scaling of other stats compared to live. This too was stated before by the devs.

- ALL ability costs have been increased relative to the scaling compared to live. This is a result of the Champion System and includes more expensive magicka/stamina skill costs, lower health/magicka/stamina regen rates, higher block cost, higher dodge roll cost in relation to your new resource pools. It might include CC break and sneak cost, but I haven't tested those yet. The idea is that you have to spec in many many champion points into cost reduction and regen passives in order to approach where you are currently on live with resource management. THIS was absolutely not disclosed to us before hand and quite infuriating to me because I see it for what it is, a massive time sink created to give the illusion of making your character stronger by making us all weaker to begin with.

- Jewelry enchants are a minuscule part of the equation compared to live. For instance, a gold magicka regen glyph in live is +18, but in 1.6 it's +58. Same for spell damage, +14 on live but +48 in 1.6. Meanwhile, set bonuses have about a 10x multiplier, +12 magicka recovery becomes +123 and +9 spell damage becomes +171. As you can see, this means that any build relying on jewelry enchants to up a certain stat are no longer viable, your build is dependent on your set bonuses. As a result, going with a magicka build leaves me handicapped with a much lower stamina regen compared to live where I can sacrifice spell damage and go with stamina regen glyphs.

- Stamina gets drained much faster in 1.6, period. Just try blocking in light armor, you'll run out of stamina in seconds, but it's not just light armor, everyone I've spoken to (even our 7/7 med full stam NB) agrees their stamina gets drained faster regardless of build. This seems to be a factor of making aoe blockable + increasing block cost + lower regen rates + lower jewelry enchant values, probably other factors as well.

- The change to impen means everyone can easily do more damage now, even if you excluded every other change in 1.6. Crit is easy enough to stack in live, and even easier in 1.6 from what I've seen. My guildie has gotten 86% spell crit on his DK through Inferno and various passives such as sorcs Exploitation + other sources he can't even determine. He's not even specced into spell crit, wearing the Valkyn Skoria 2 piece + Seducer + Cyrodiil's Light + precise Master's Staff.


All in all, this means that the meta is now more dependent on stacking damage shields (since they can't be crit and offer mitigation) and heals to stay alive. I'm sure things will improve as people gain more champion points to dump into the passives, but I wont hold my breath. If anyone is able to figure out build changes to solve the 'stamina problem' I'd love to hear it, as that is what I've had the hardest time dealing with, both in light/heavy armor.

Lava_Croft

Sounds like it's time to dust off Siphoning Attacks.

Faugaun

So they made things more challenging and you cannot 1 button spam your way through life?

Go ZOS!

DDuke

I agree with your points, and also feel this'll lead to more dmg shield spamming meta

They should significantly increase the TTK (like +10x now that there's no caps), but simultaneously make dmg shields / heals less enticing. Perhaps separating spell dmg & healing (would apply to shields also) wouldn't be a bad idea...

Ghostbane

I thought they confirmed you couldn't stack shields in 1.6?

Soulac

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Sounds like it's time to dust off Siphoning Attacks.

Siphoning attacks + entropy combination

Teargrants

Faugaun wrote: »

So they made things more challenging and you cannot 1 button spam your way through life?

Go ZOS!

What? If anything, it's more about '1 button spam' in 1.6 than ever before. Just a race to see who can output the most burst DPS and force the other guy into heal mode to make him run out of resources.

Ghostbane wrote: »

I thought they confirmed you couldn't stack shields in 1.6?

No, that was just a rumor that some ppl started spreading for w/e reason. If you went and read the dev interview w/ Eric Wrobel, he literally stated:

You can have as many Damage Shields as you want basically.

Shield stacking has not changed at all in 1.6, it is here to stay.

technohic

Ghostbane wrote: »

I thought they confirmed you couldn't stack shields in 1.6?

No I think it was the opposite as they said "people really enjoy stacking shields." or along those lines.

DDuke

technohic wrote: »

Ghostbane wrote: »

I thought they confirmed you couldn't stack shields in 1.6?

No I think it was the opposite as they said "people really enjoy stacking shields." or along those lines.

Just goes to prove how they're completely out of touch with their player base.

And apparently don't read forums: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/143759/would-you-like-dmg-shields-heals-to-become-more-or-less-prevalent-in-pvp?

Teargrants wrote: »

Faugaun wrote: »

So they made things more challenging and you cannot 1 button spam your way through life?

Go ZOS!

What? If anything, it's more about '1 button spam' in 1.6 than ever before. Just a race to see who can output the most burst DPS and force the other guy into heal mode to make him run out of resources.

Ghostbane wrote: »

I thought they confirmed you couldn't stack shields in 1.6?

No, that was just a rumor that some ppl started spreading for w/e reason. If you went and read the dev interview w/ Eric Wrobel, he literally stated:

You can have as many Damage Shields as you want basically.

Shield stacking has not changed at all in 1.6, it is here to stay.

Yep, this is pretty much what will happen...

If you think Snipe is annoying now, think again after 1.6

I'm pretty much focused on stealth & burst damage with my playstyle, and I'm against these changes to TTK, even though they'd pretty much make me a god in PvP.

Mauz

I think what he meant is that if you grind x month in craglorn you're back on todays level and can 1 button spam your way through life.

Increasing TTK wouldnt make sense. Its right now for me 1-5min. After 5min most peoples incl. me run away cause its boring. This x10 would result in all fights ending in a draw.

What concerns me...cause I dont like grinding...is how much is the difference between a character who grinded loads of champions pts and a character that developed slowly e.g. by pvp only.

technohic

Yeah; I was hoping to get away from my blazing shield build. It's really not fun to just keep it up all the time, but sometimes it feels like you have to or get melted.

The other option is just pure block casting which is equally boring but also the same sort of effective play. You almost need that or to spam immovable to keep CCs off you.

DDuke

Mauz wrote: »

I think what he meant is that if you grind x month in craglorn you're back on todays level and can 1 button spam your way through life.

Increasing TTK wouldnt make sense. Its right now for me 1-5min. After 5min most peoples incl. me run away cause its boring. This x10 would result in all fights ending in a draw.

What concerns me...cause I dont like grinding...is how much is the difference between a character who grinded loads of champions pts and a character that developed slowly e.g. by pvp only.

TTK for anyone below 3k health is currently <0,1 seconds for me, while TTK of anyone above 3k health is more around 15 mins - never, if they start permablocking & spamming heals/shields.

In other words, balance is completely borked.

Mauz

DDuke wrote: »

If you think Snipe is annoying now, think again after 1.6

You can reduce crits to normal hits by stacking impen. This applies to stealth attacks as well. So I expect snipe to be less dangerous. But lets see.

DDuke wrote: »

I'm pretty much focused on stealth & burst damage with my playstyle, and I'm against these changes to TTK, even though they'd pretty much make me a god in PvP.

Thats only if you dont stop disappearing in between being hit by an ambush+concealed blade combo.

eliisra

Faugaun wrote: »

So they made things more challenging and you cannot 1 button spam your way through life?

Go ZOS!

How is pointing your mouse at something and killing it in 1-3 hits more challenging? We're playing MMO's here, not shooters.

The combat mechanics in MMO's doesn't have the same skill ceiling, aiming and movement as in shooters, meaning low TTK here is a completely different story and not very compatible with having "skill". It's rather about who manages to attack first, stun opponent and spam 1 button.

TTK is already very low in ESO, compared to other commercial MMO's. People might assume it's high because ridiculous block/cast, cookie cutter 1vX DK's never going down due to superior synergy between passives and skills. But other builds and classes, tends to die in seconds. So I'm really dreading the future, if it means people blowing up faster.

Poxheart

Teargrants wrote: »

- ALL ability costs have been increased relative to the scaling compared to live. This is a result of the Champion System and includes more expensive magicka/stamina skill costs, lower health/magicka/stamina regen rates, higher block cost, higher dodge roll cost in relation to your new resource pools. It might include CC break and sneak cost, but I haven't tested those yet. The idea is that you have to spec in many many champion points into cost reduction and regen passives in order to approach where you are currently on live with resource management. THIS was absolutely not disclosed to us before hand and quite infuriating to me because I see it for what it is, a massive time sink created to give the illusion of making your character stronger by making us all weaker to begin with.

I absolutely noticed this in the first fight I got into on my DK wearing full heavy armor. Both stamina & magicka were gone so fast, but I have not allocated my stamina points so maybe it will get better. However, this is going to make it incredibly difficult for new people playing the game.

Teargrants wrote: »

- Jewelry enchants are a minuscule part of the equation compared to live. For instance, a gold magicka regen glyph in live is +18, but in 1.6 it's +58. Same for spell damage, +14 on live but +48 in 1.6. Meanwhile, set bonuses have about a 10x multiplier, +12 magicka recovery becomes +123 and +9 spell damage becomes +171. As you can see, this means that any build relying on jewelry enchants to up a certain stat are no longer viable, your build is dependent on your set bonuses. As a result, going with a magicka build leaves me handicapped with a much lower stamina regen compared to live where I can sacrifice spell damage and go with stamina regen glyphs.

On my heavy armor set I have 3x gold stamina cost reduction enchants. They reduce the costs by 200 each, but it didn't seem to make a difference. I'd hate to see how quickly I'd go out of stamina without them.

Teargrants wrote: »

- Stamina gets drained much faster in 1.6, period. Just try blocking in light armor, you'll run out of stamina in seconds, but it's not just light armor, everyone I've spoken to (even our 7/7 med full stam NB) agrees their stamina gets drained faster regardless of build. This seems to be a factor of making aoe blockable + increasing block cost + lower regen rates + lower jewelry enchant values, probably other factors as well.

Stamina gets drained super fast blocking in full heavy, too. I suspect this is an attempt to get people away from block casting (if you're out of resources you have to make light/heavy attacks), however what actually happens is that you just die faster because you need to block opposing attacks.

Araxleon

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Sounds like it's time to dust off Siphoning Attacks.

Yep, Its been locked in the chest for awhile now.

lostavalon

Well sweet it wasn't just me that noticed the fast consumption of stam/mag!

cozmon3c_ESO

I think they need to get rid of sheild stacking and increase everyone's health by 15k. Less time having to spam boring shields with more pew pew time for everyone. Shields should replace the one you had up so it would require skill to place one after the other with incoming damage. Just my two cents.

shebali

cozmon3c_ESO wrote: »

I think they need to get rid of sheild stacking and increase everyone's health by 15k. Less time having to spam boring shields with more pew pew time for everyone. Shields should replace the one you had up so it would require skill to place one after the other with incoming damage. Just my two cents.

Why should they give away free HP? You want more health, change your gear and points to get more HP. You can't pew pew without taking a risk. The idea with 1.6 is right is making people choose between dps and staying alive. They just have a long way to go.

LtCrunch

shebali wrote: »

cozmon3c_ESO wrote: »

I think they need to get rid of sheild stacking and increase everyone's health by 15k. Less time having to spam boring shields with more pew pew time for everyone. Shields should replace the one you had up so it would require skill to place one after the other with incoming damage. Just my two cents.

Why should they give away free HP? You want more health, change your gear and points to get more HP. You can't pew pew without taking a risk. The idea with 1.6 is right is making people choose between dps and staying alive. They just have a long way to go.

They already give away free HP in Cyrodiil....just sayin'.

Valnas

w/ all my pts in regen and reductionn (mag), i'm digging deep into the tripot stack to keep stam good. that said, w/ the 20 sec regen buff and immov's 9.5 duration it's pretty much fine.

If i i had to block out of my pool, i'd consider posture + 5 hvy + 8% from champ tree before holding it up. Every time i try to staff block i'm 0'd.

Satiar

I'm going to have to see how this all goes.

On the one hand, I think this might be a clever way of getting around blockcasting. It makes blocking a more active ability, as opposed to one you hold down 24/7.

Poxheart

Satiar wrote: »

I'm going to have to see how this all goes.

On the one hand, I think this might be a clever way of getting around blockcasting. It makes blocking a more active ability, as opposed to one you hold down 24/7.

This thought occurred to me too. However, with how high the damage on some abilities can get, dropping block is not a good idea.

Cody

Players can still hide like a bunch of milk drinking cowards behind endless damage shields unfortunately:(

Teargrants

Satiar wrote: »

I'm going to have to see how this all goes.

On the one hand, I think this might be a clever way of getting around blockcasting. It makes blocking a more active ability, as opposed to one you hold down 24/7.

WTB pocket Templar spear shards. Willing to trade pocket stam NB.

kijima

Ran 62 stamina last night on PTS, tipped into stamina regen and reduction with CP, gylphs and what not. This was on a trials VR14NB and using 7 med with sword and board. I could block eternally as compared to shield stacking.

Ran a 10 minute battle with a DK last night, I died in the end, as I tried to take a sip of my scotch while fighting, lost concentration and died (that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

A few people watching asked in zone how I'm not running out of stam. Could be a fun build, although plenty left to test.

kijima

Sap is still awesome with enough targets fwiw.

yodased

you guys aren't looking far enough into the future.

The champ system has a bunch of perks to make your TTK to go waay up for any class.

How about get 2500 magic back any time you take 20% damage from spell.

So get crit with frags? Free dragon blood. Thats just one.

There are a lot of things we will not see in the meta until a month-month.5 into 1.6 i think.

I really think medium armor stam build sorcs are going to wreckt things.

Germtrocity

It is not the TTK we need to worry about... But the fall damage

Mujuro

Teargrants wrote: »

- ALL ability costs have been increased relative to the scaling compared to live. This is a result of the Champion System and includes more expensive magicka/stamina skill costs, lower health/magicka/stamina regen rates, higher block cost, higher dodge roll cost in relation to your new resource pools. It might include CC break and sneak cost, but I haven't tested those yet. The idea is that you have to spec in many many champion points into cost reduction and regen passives in order to approach where you are currently on live with resource management. THIS was absolutely not disclosed to us before hand and quite infuriating to me because I see it for what it is, a massive time sink created to give the illusion of making your character stronger by making us all weaker to begin with.

This.

While I can't say that I've tested as much as I need to on PTS (particularly given the "requesting character load" issue), I'm not impressed at all with what I've seen for the so-called Champion System. It seems to be nothing more than a stall tactic until "real" content is released or, alternatively, some tactic to stem the paid-subscription departures.

olsborg

Teargrants wrote: »

TThe idea is that you have to spec in many many champion points into cost reduction and regen passives in order to approach where you are currently on live with resource management. THIS was absolutely not disclosed to us before hand and quite infuriating to me because I see it for what it is, a massive time sink created to give the illusion of making your character stronger by making us all weaker to begin with.

This is probably my biggest problem with 1.6, but most of your points are concerns and opinions I agree with.