vMA Crushing Wall enchant bugged?

pretzl

So this bugreport started as a discussion in my TamrielFoundry thread, but has evolved to one of the weirdest bugs I have ever encountered in this game.
The issue stems from the Crushing Wall enchantment on a Maelstrom Inferno staff. This has thus far been tested by 6 people across all 4 classes and against various mobs/bosses (mainly the Scorpion worldboss in Scorpions Ravine, Craglorn).

The issue here is that the enchant seems to pick and choose which character to actually work on, work half-way on or not work at all on. All my testers are reporting both full procs on all classes, half procs on all classes and no procs on all classes. It seems magicka templars have a bigger issue with this enchant as 4/5 reported it not adding damage to light attacks at all. My magicka DK is getting about half damage, whereas other magicka DKs are getting 0 damage added. Same goes for magsorcs and magblades, although results there are more variated than with the other 2 classes.

I've attached some of the testing results to showcase exactly what I mean from most of my testers, so feel free to discuss if this is indeed a bug or simply something wrong with our characters, albeit at this point it seems to be a somewhat spread issue as we're all using different addons, different gear, different skills and testing on a range of mobs.

My testing
Without blockade

With blockade


Testing by @mariusz2304



Testing by @IIJonnoII
Without Blockade

With Blockade


In the pictures you can see both me getting around half the damage increase, mariusz getting 0 damage increase and Jonno getting the full damage increase. Jonno did some additional testing and got 0 damage increase on his magplar. All tests were done with the same staff per character but with varying results. I additionally tested with every single class where half damage increase came from mDK, full dmg on magsorc, 0 dmg on magplar and 0 dmg on magblade. @HawkStan has also tested the issue and found full dmg increase on magblade.

As you can see this is a relatively complex issue and I'm not 100% sure as to what is causing it exactly, but as of extensive testing, it seems to be related to if you have aggro on a boss/mob or not. If you do, your crushing wall enchant will not work or will only work at half damage increase. If you do not have aggro, you get the full increase.
If this is true, it's not a major issue for group content, but it's a crippling issue for solo play, making vMA staves useless in for example solo grinding or vMA.

All tests are done on PC EU megaserver.
If anyone else wishes to test to see their results, please do. The more info we can get the better.

pretzl

Okay so I just got it confirmed from @IIJonnoII that the issue is related to aggro.
Quote from him:
[00:48, 15.11.2016] Jonno: So if i take agro initially i get 0 damage increase once tank taunts it it takes 5-7 seconds for me to get full damage again
[00:48, 15.11.2016] Jonno: Same goes if tank looses taunt and i get agro

mariusz2304

I didnt check on others chars besides my mDK where as u could see in opening post (2 middle pictures) I'm getting 0 additional dmg. For addition : I was using precise staff and blockade lvl 1(parses on picture) and Wall of Elements (no morph) a day before. I'll post pics from parses on other classes see if results will vary.

FriedEggSandwich

Interesting find. I have nothing to add but will be watching this thread. Will also do some testing myself now. The only thing I could add is that while doing vma I have noticed my enchantment ran out and I didn't really notice a dps loss, or a gain after recharging it. I just assumed the dps boost was too small to be noticed without combat logs. To be fair knowing my actual dps is the least of my concerns in that place.

HawkStan

I can confirm the agro thing on magblade aswell.

Reorx_Holybeard

I was testing Blockade/LA damage last week and ran into the same problems. The extra damage from the vMA staff would appear and disappear at random (or at least no obvious cause). I was testing it solo so I'm not sure the taunt/aggro explanation would fit there however.

pretzl

Reorx_Holybeard wrote: »

I was testing Blockade/LA damage last week and ran into the same problems. The extra damage from the vMA staff would appear and disappear at random (or at least no obvious cause). I was testing it solo so I'm not sure the taunt/aggro explanation would fit there however.

Were you completely solo? Then the Blockade's position on target might still be an issue.
It's insane how bugged that skill is, let alone the only enchant that buffs it.

Reorx_Holybeard

pretzl wrote: »

Reorx_Holybeard wrote: »

I was testing Blockade/LA damage last week and ran into the same problems. The extra damage from the vMA staff would appear and disappear at random (or at least no obvious cause). I was testing it solo so I'm not sure the taunt/aggro explanation would fit there however.

Were you completely solo? Then the Blockade's position on target might still be an issue.
It's insane how bugged that skill is, let alone the only enchant that buffs it.

Yes, completely solo most of the time killing Giants and Mammoths in Wrothgar. A few times there were passerby's interfering but not often enough to explain the results. I thought at one point it was mob positioning in the blockade but I couldn't get a repeatable test. It would just seem to work or not work at random.

The only somewhat repeatable thing I found is that it would work fine after logging in but after a few fights it would start not working again. Very strange....

Drummerx04

Well... if it's too difficult to efficiently determine whether an enemy is affected by WoE for the extra damage, perhaps modifying the enchant to simply proc the extra damage for 8 seconds as it's own buff would be a quick and easy solution. This should nicely reduce the amount of checks that need to occur server side while maintaining the core use of the staff. Generally you are light weaving on mobs within your WoE anyway, so while this would technically be a buff to the staff 1k-2k damage is hardly OP.

It would be similar to the way cruel flurry procs a trackable buff

pretzl

Reorx_Holybeard wrote: »

pretzl wrote: »

Reorx_Holybeard wrote: »

I was testing Blockade/LA damage last week and ran into the same problems. The extra damage from the vMA staff would appear and disappear at random (or at least no obvious cause). I was testing it solo so I'm not sure the taunt/aggro explanation would fit there however.

Were you completely solo? Then the Blockade's position on target might still be an issue.
It's insane how bugged that skill is, let alone the only enchant that buffs it.

Yes, completely solo most of the time killing Giants and Mammoths in Wrothgar. A few times there were passerby's interfering but not often enough to explain the results. I thought at one point it was mob positioning in the blockade but I couldn't get a repeatable test. It would just seem to work or not work at random.

The only somewhat repeatable thing I found is that it would work fine after logging in but after a few fights it would start not working again. Very strange....

That's why I opened this post with calling this the weirdest bug I've ever encountered in this game, even in any game. It really is the weirdest bug I've ever seen given it has a very distinct issue that has repeatable ways to encounter it, but it has "side-effects" which cannot be reproduced... Not just one side-effect, but several and it seems like nothing is making any distinct contribution to explain why, but rather a mesh of different problems.

Drummerx04 wrote: »

Well... if it's too difficult to efficiently determine whether an enemy is affected by WoE for the extra damage, perhaps modifying the enchant to simply proc the extra damage for 8 seconds as it's own buff would be a quick and easy solution. This should nicely reduce the amount of checks that need to occur server side while maintaining the core use of the staff. Generally you are light weaving on mobs within your WoE anyway, so while this would technically be a buff to the staff 1k-2k damage is hardly OP.

It would be similar to the way cruel flurry procs a trackable buff

This could be a nice way to change it, yes, but the enchant already has it's own trackable buff. It should, however, be a trackable debuff, which it isn't. In Srendarr, for example, it will show up as a separate placable "skill", per say, called "Crushing Wall". It does, however, not show up in target debuffs on any addon I've seen (Srendarr, FTC, LUIE etc.)

Trouble13691

I was wondering if you ever heard anything further from developers on this @pretzl ?

pretzl

Trouble13691 wrote: »

I was wondering if you ever heard anything further from developers on this @pretzl ?

Nope, not a word.
It's seemingly fixed since a few patches ago tho.

Masel

Can confirm that this bug is back, but maybe in another form (tested on dummy by us and on bosses from others): 3479 light attack without Crushing wall, 5476 with crushing wall. 3479 with crushing wall if another player placed his blockade first. All numbers crits. This leads to significantly lower group dps in trials, as seven vma enchants go to waste because only the first applied counts.

pretzl

Masel92 wrote: »

Can confirm that this bug is back, but maybe in another form (tested on dummy by us and on bosses from others): 3479 light attack without Crushing wall, 5476 with crushing wall. 3479 with crushing wall if another player placed his blockade first. All numbers crits. This leads to significantly lower group dps in trials, as seven vma enchants go to waste because only the first applied counts.

Yolo just did the same test and he didn't find anything weird... Are you absolutely sure?

Masel

pretzl wrote: »

Masel92 wrote: »

Can confirm that this bug is back, but maybe in another form (tested on dummy by us and on bosses from others): 3479 light attack without Crushing wall, 5476 with crushing wall. 3479 with crushing wall if another player placed his blockade first. All numbers crits. This leads to significantly lower group dps in trials, as seven vma enchants go to waste because only the first applied counts.

Yolo just did the same test and he didn't find anything weird... Are you absolutely sure?

Yes absolutely sure. Tested five minutes any combination, even using one lightning and one fire blockade and vice versa. I was a magblade and the other tester was a magsorc.

There are a several other posts on the forums right now that state similar results

SirDopey

Yeah tested it last night on Skeleton (PC NA). First caster will get buff but no one else is.

I'm guessing it has something to do with the debuff, I'm assuming the code has it that the enchantment applies a debuff to the enemy and that debuff increases your heavy and light attacks, so once your debuff is on no one else can apply one.

YoloWizard

I did test that and worked fine for me, can retest again with multiple and double check

YoloWizard

Yeah retesting this again and it is actually bugged

Masel

YoloWizard wrote: »

Yeah retesting this again and it is actually bugged

Still don't know when it occurs and when not though. Some people tell me they tested it and it worked, but most people say it doesn't work. So ZoS, fix those staffs now! There are multiple threads about it... vMA Bow is bugged too, eats enchantments every tick for as long as you stay on that bar.

SirDopey

Any response at all yet from ZOS? Like, are they even investigating or just not give a ***?

Izaki

ZOSE PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF THE TIME I SPENT GRINDING THAT PLACE! (I still don't have the sharpened one, but the Nirnhoned is just fine for now);

I have tested this out too to be sure it it was bugged on Xbox too, same test as Yolo and Masel and I can confirm that it is indeed bugged... But in a pretty weird way. Like if I was to reapply my Blockade after 6 seconds while the other player's Blockade is still running, I'm still not getting the buff even after his Blockade expires, but he doesn't get it either when he reapplies his. Really screwed up..

Orbital

Trials broken, vma staves broken,vma bows,guild stores,
but we can play house so whatever,
who cares
Ps I love you yolo

pretzl

SirDopey wrote: »

Any response at all yet from ZOS? Like, are they even investigating or just not give a ***?

No response as far as I've seen or heard. This issue was overlooked as far as responses go last time, but was fixed nevertheless. I guess it's just a waiting game since @ZOS_GinaBruno and @ZOS_JessicaFolsom don't seem to be reading these Bug Reports all that often...
Maybe there's someone else we need to summon?

Masel

How about this guy?

pretzl

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/3925919#Comment_3925919
Another thread on the same issue got a reply.
"Future incremental patch", eh? Cya in 6 months broskies.

Masel

pretzl wrote: »

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/3925919#Comment_3925919
Another thread on the same issue got a reply.
"Future incremental patch", eh? Cya in 6 months broskies.

OK so rip vMA staves in trials for now, might be better to just use another IA/MD staff after all besides one or two members of the group.

pretzl

Masel92 wrote: »

pretzl wrote: »

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/3925919#Comment_3925919
Another thread on the same issue got a reply.
"Future incremental patch", eh? Cya in 6 months broskies.

OK so rip vMA staves in trials for now, might be better to just use another IA/MD staff after all besides one or two members of the group.

Yeah, exactly. Think I'm gonna switch to a MD staff on backbar aswell since my vMA isn't even sharpened.