Balance direction in Update 13

Integral1900

Have to confess that I love this patch, had a go on the pts and it's a big improvement. I would have been happy if all they did was simplify the abilities, how much better is just adds percent damage than all this silenced, stunned or off balance cobblers. I know what the terms mean but it's obvious most players in game have no idea what they mean

Keep it up Rich, we of the quiet majority are happy little bunnies

By the way, can someone buy a drink for the person that built the player home in stros mkai, that thing is GORGEOUSE!!!

Dev

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

1. Lowering the ceiling on the top damage
2. Raising the floor on the bottom damage
3. Simplifying some of the more intense rotations to make them a bit easier for players of all skill levels

So basically:
Before u13: 'good dps' was doing 35k, 'not so good' was doing 10k.
With u13: 'Good dps' will do 25k, and 'not so good' will do 20k?

The 'not so good dps' probably had a few reasons such as:

1. Death, doesnt really matter why their health hit 0, since dead dps is no dps. only practice can fix this
2. They might be new to grouping or end game as a whole, they will get used to it.
3. It can also be gear, you might have seen some threads regarding the rng aspect. Gold tempers are still pricey and vMA gives people nightmares. While i can understand that the 'best' weapons should be difficult to get, there are enough people with them that the power band of the 'haves' vs the 'dont haves' will be noticeable. Gold weapons make a lot of difference as does the special enchants.
4. Hate to say it, but it takes some effort. Some people just dont care about their dps, which is their choice, but it takes some form of motivation to research sites or watch videos and the courage to ask questions. It takes a lot of time to farm the gear in the right traits, which doesnt help.

The thing to keep in mind, the good dps already solved all those issues, and now we will not be able to carry those who haven't; wouldnt that just lead to more wipes and frustration?

Joy_Division

@ZOS_RichLambert

I admire your goals and have written on these forums numerous times that damage was out of control and the gap between the "ceiling and the "floor" was too great. I am glad you and your team are working toward these goals.

The one thing I would question is whether or not some of the proposed changes attain the goal of "Simplifying some of the more intense rotations to make them a bit easier for players of all skill levels."

What I mean is that rotations are done not just against target skeletons, but against PvE mechanics and PvP opponents. And I think some things cannot be quantified in the manner @Alpheu5 laid out.

Take Haunting Curse. 6 seconds is a long time for an explosion; it's the sort of subtle power that won't entice newer players to use it and nor should then since in solo content it is more important to quickly dispatch numerous weak enemies than have a slightly more efficient PvE boss rotation. I've seen the youtube of your flawless VMA run (congrats!). you know the value in bursting down those adds and that means the velocious morph would be the more preferred option for that goal. This sort of change does simplify a PvE boss rotation, but it makes the actual content of the game more cumbersome. If your goal is to aid newer players, I'm not sure this will do it. How does one quantify the value of eliminating an enemy quicker? Or how many curses cast are wasted because the target died before it explodes?

Or take Blazing Spear. Removing the stun means removing it from anyone who DPS (most players) since they will to take this morph because that's way too much damage to leave on the table. To use the vMA example again, Blazing Spear comes in ridiculously handy for stunning the ranged mobs on the Ice flows stage, temporarily holding off melee adds (indeed, ESO's own combat tips suggest us to "even the odds" by using this skill!), while doing efficient damage. This would be no longer possible. I want the spears DPS, but to get the stun, I need to slot Javelin, a skill I don't have room on my bar to begin with. This would make competing against the in-game mechanics, as opposed to a target skeleton, more difficult. If I want the CC, then I lose the damage and we all know vMA is where damage rules so the content is still more difficult. This is not your goal!

Finally, there is PvP. If you want the goal to "raise the floor" and make it so newer players are not AP fodder, I can guarantee you the Curse and the Blazing Spear changes will be counterproductive to that goal. Efficient and constant DPS, the sort that Haunting Curse provides, is a very difficult to get a kill on an enemy player. A sorcerer, in flimsy light armor and low health, must pressure their opponent to have a shot. In duels, pets perform this task extremely well. A petless sorcerer relies on curse because it cant be dodged or blocked, it's literally a ticking bomb. Dragging out that damage to nearly double the times time is counterproductive to what the sorcerer wants to do: burst down her opponent. I want that curse to explode, not spam filler stuff like Crushing Shock.

Templars have awful CC abilities, Blazing Spear was by far the most versatile spell they had and was a staple in the arsenal because it fulfilled this function. The loss of a stun turns this into a less impressive form of Elemental Ring (which can be cast at a longer range with extra spell penetration) and force every templar to use javelin that wants to CC something. Luminous won't CC an opponent that has any sort of damage ticking on them (likely form the Templar's own DoTs, most certainly from another players'). What happens in such a situation is worse: the disorient breaks immediately and grants an opponent CC Immunity! See here:
.
Experienced PvP players will avoid this morph like the plague. Newer player will be in for a rude disappointment when it not only fails to CC them, but makes it so they can't be CCed. Not your goal!

My suggestions:
There is value in the Haunting Curse idea, but offer it to those sorcerers who already have pets to keep the pressure onto enemies to take advantage of its efficiency. So make it the new morph for Daedric Prey. Give those non pet sorcs who value the inefficient burst morph of Velocious the option. Everybody is happy Win. Win

Blazing Spear is precisely the type of interactive and interesting spells in this game that offers counterplay and should be more of. The last thing ZoS should be doing is removing them. Yes, it is good and versatile, but an opponent can evade the thrown spear. It balances itself! As far as making it "simpler," you already did this with the faster cast time. Newer players will more easily hit their targets. I would agree the extra 2 seconds of damage would probably make the spell too powerful. It's ok, Templars don't need it. I certainly will take the inconvenience of casting it 2 seconds earlier for the stun that is so darn valuable in competitive situations. If you want to make Templar rotations easier, I would say Reflective Light is a bigger culprit. It is a very short DoT that I am constantly failing to keep on target.

TheHsN

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Betheny wrote: »

Gamers who need things "simplified" shouldn't be playing games!

So because i'm an older gamer and slower... I shouldn't be playing games? That's a pretty narrow view don't you think?

that doesnt mean that you can tune the game playing to your abilities...and destroy the game for others...

FoolishHuman

Minalan wrote: »

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Betheny wrote: »

Gamers who need things "simplified" shouldn't be playing games!

So because i'm an older gamer and slower... I shouldn't be playing games? That's a pretty narrow view don't you think?

You're not that old yet mate, a more complex rotation is just a matter of practice. A LOT of it, just to get the muscle memory down. The "over 40" crowd in my guild do just fine, no reflex problems or slowness. They do say their fingers hurt a little after hours of PVP play, but it's totally worth it.

Besides, I plan on playing video games until they stick me in the ground dead. It's awesome that some of you older guys are still playing.

PS: If you think a 3.5 second curse is too short, how about a 6 second shield?

So I'm supposed to train hours on end for my hobby just to not be kicked from some dungeon? Look at some of the posts here what some people expect from other players.
I'm only 31, but I can already notice that I have trouble keeping up with young teenage boys who are faster, can play longer hours and so on. And it's not just this game, all games are designed to be ever faster and require shorter reaction times or insane time investments. That's not what skill should be about. Situational awareness, strategy, these things are dead in MMOs. All you do is copy a build from the internet, learn a rotation by heart and then click as fast as you can.
Now people are angry that their numbers are gonna be a bit lower, but that's also not what gaming is about. I think simplifying is a good thing sometimes, but every time game developers talk about it they get shouted down like in here. And then what we get is power creep in all games and ever faster reaction times. I don't think that's the right way to go.

Cinbri

@ZOS_RichLambert
please check my post, I tried to be as detailed as possible regarding why some of new changes will increase gap for templars CC capability.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/3662479/#Comment_3662479
And since Luminous Shards were mentioned specifically I will post here too why noone in PvP will use this morph:

It will provide free CC immunity

Lizzrdd

Betheny wrote: »

It's actually quite offensive come to think of it that @ZOS_RichLambert seems to think "older gamers" need things simplified...maybe their fingers don't mash buttons *quite* as fast, but their minds definitely can work out a build and rotation to play with just the same.

Simplifying things simply removes choice and build diversity.

What is really offensive is that some are ASSUMING that simplifying the game has anything to do with the age of the people playing it. And what is equally offensive is this kind of generalization directed at players over the age of 25.

Hymzir

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

PVP players REALLY need to be able to land 3 unblockable curses in 12 seconds this patch, especially with the ice staff changes and incoming Magicka Templar ice staff block/purge/heal tanks.

We know that burst is really important in PVP - having the 3 extra globals helps with that, but we'll re-evaluate the change.

I do hope you realize that having the stun on Blazing Spear is also really important in PVP, and thus will be re-evaluating that change as well.

niawrathb16_ESO

Thank you for the explanation, its always appreciated. I just thought I would pop in a positive post, I am optimistic about my Magicka DK with this update, I am happy to have my pet build back (they were a bit too squishy) and I am ecstatic about the Ice stave changes I have had an Ice tank for over a year and these changes are very welcome.

Xsorus

Lord_Dexter wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Update 13 has been out on the PTS for almost a week now and there’s been a lot of good feedback and questions posted with regards to the balance changes. I wanted to take a few moments to briefly discuss the overall direction for these changes so you can hopefully start to see why these changes are occurring.

For Update 13, our overall goal was to lessen the gap between the top and bottom. (in terms of overall damage output, coordinated vs. uncoordinated, small and large scale PVE & PVP) This doesn’t mean all classes are perfectly equal in all ways or that we want to remove skill from the game. We want to establish a solid baseline so that we can better tune and tweak balance. For this update we attacked this problem from multiple angles by doing the following:

1. Lowering the ceiling on the top damage
2. Raising the floor on the bottom damage
3. Simplifying some of the more intense rotations to make them a bit easier for players of all skill levels

Some of you will probably ask how the above goals translate into the changes we made. Here are some notes on a couple of the more hotly debated ones so you can see how they fit into the bigger picture:

• Proc Sets – This change falls directly into the “lower the ceiling” category for both PVP and PVE. We wanted to reduce the overall burst potential without dramatically lowering sustain. There have been a lot of comments on this change, specifically from the PVP side where sets not critting will not help because of the Impenetrable trait - Impen does not reduce the chance of being crit - it reduces the damage of the crit that hits you.
• Stun Removal on Blazing Spear – This change falls into the “simplify” category. We increased the duration of the damage on this ability to simplify the rotation. In addition we removed the stun component. Now the morph choices are more damage or more resources and disorient. (CC)
• Radiant Destruction – This one is definitely in the “lower the ceiling” category. It was strong in both PVE and PVP and needed adjustment.
• Haunting Curse – This one falls into the “simplify” category. The goal was to free up globals for more abilities to be cast with this change. (i.e. – every 10.5 seconds you get to use 3 more abilities) @Alpheu5 has a pretty great image that illustrates this change in this thread.

I didn't touch on every change or class, but I hope that sheds some light into how and why we've made some of the changes we've made. We have a lot more balance changes planned, but due to how our build cycle works, most of them won't make the next PTS build - they should hopefully make PTS3 though.

It should also be noted that what is on PTS now is our first pass at these changes. We’re evaluating all of them and will make adjustments based on both feedback and data collected, so please continue to test them on PTS and give feedback.

-rich

Explain why Destro Ult got a 3% damage buff with Lightning Staff?

AOE damage is reduced while hitting multiple targets,

What are you talking about?

AOE damage got buffed even more this patch. Destro Ult got reduced by 5%, however if you're using a lightning staff it gets buffed by 8% now. Basically a net gain 3%.

This is before you factor in AOE cap damage changes (which will result in increased damage, but I have no problem with because AOE caps shouldn't exist)

Xsorus

I'm confused about the Blazing Spear Change; Cause I never really used it for the Stun since I have basically the same thing in a single target version of it the form of Javelin.

Disorient is also useless for the morph as well. I say change it to a Root instead.

Junipus

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Betheny wrote: »

Gamers who need things "simplified" shouldn't be playing games!

So because i'm an older gamer and slower... I shouldn't be playing games? That's a pretty narrow view don't you think?

No, the issue is you're trying to balance a game under various systems that aren't well thought out in the long term.

- You implemented the CP system without a CP cap which resulted in inbalanced gameplay from those with 7-8-900+ CP at the time being able to cakewalk over others, so you added a cap.
- You added extra VR ranks as they were at the time to increase the minimum cap which helped those who hadn't reached that level yet.
- You're adding extra CP with each release almost which is providing a power creep, so you respond by reducing the damage ceiling however you can.
- You added battle leveling for everyone under CP160, which resulted in smart players taking advantage of the benefits of being non-CP low level to win duels against CP players who were newer.
- You're trying to narrow the gap between new players/slower players and old players/experienced players by giving everyone the tools to kill others with as little effort as possible (that was the reasoning behind proc sets yes?) and simplifying things as much as possible.
- You're allowing all players access to those same tools and the result is the experienced and expert players being able to deal far more damage than newer/slower players with those same tools.

The end result of all these is a system where nothing's changed except those at the top are shafted by the decisions.

Trying to narrow the gap with artificial restrictions and lowering of the damage ceiling is only going to hurt things in the long term and drive away those who actually understand this game and can provide proper feedback instead of "waaaah! NBs kill me, nerf them plz!!".

If you added new CP ranked gear with the Vvardenfell release (Vvardenfell will be the next release, can guarantee it) to increase the gear cap to say CP200 (or higher) and then battle leveled everyone to CP200 or higher then those at the bottom can reach closer to those at the top and those at the top can keep their current damage ceiling without feeling like they're being punished for pushing their limits. You can keep the current crafting materials as simply give each 10 or 20 CP the same amount as CP160 as you did with Nightwood, Voidsteel and Voidcloth/Shadowhide.

I would wait until you release more details on PTS3 but, since you've stated your goal is to narrow the gap you created and don't know how to fix, I'm not holding my breath it'll be anything positive.

DragonBound

Can someone please explain why so many are convinced we are getting spellcrafting? I can only imagine the major balance issues a system like this would cause in eso.

eagles9595b16_ESO

THanks for the information but I still don't understand several changes/nerf and don't see how they'll allow new or casual player to catch up hardcore players.

For example, stamina DD build:
Hurricane nerf ? impact stam sorc build, one of the main skill htey're using..
Rearming trap nerf ? impact stam DD build

Can you explain what you did to improve stamina DD players ?
Have you checked the number of stamina builds include in veteran trials ? 80% of the dps builds are magika.
I don't see any of the actual changes reverse the trend...

The bow Hawk Eye boost "pew pew" is not enough.. in a hard vet fight if you see someone using bow light attack repeatidly he'll get kicked. You don't do any kind of good dps with BOW.
You want to improve the bow dps then leave Hawk Eye as it is but increase the boost the damage per tick.
Intead of reaching 25% boost after 5 arrow, make it reaches 25% in 3.
Anyway, the only bow abilities people (experienced players) are using in vet dungeons/trials are poison injection and the AOE.

Now if you really want to decrease the gap for new/casual players and hardcore one.. remove all the crap trait from the undaunted chest.
Why ? it's simple... hardcore player will always spend enough time to have to farm keys and finally get the right trait.
Casual ones ?? maybe not... most of them end up with prosporous, training, well fitted trait that is not helping them to catch up anything.
Several videos on youtube revealed that even with more than 100 keys you end up with +70/75% useless traits... and if you have a divine or infused, it can be on a moster set that nobody is using. Your loot system is cheated, there is no way that you find so many time useless trait if you are applying a fair random loot.
Solution is easy : add a token system in which you can exchange any monster shoulder with any trait for a certain number of keys.
People would still be able to take theire chance with undanted chest... or use their keys and exchange them for what they really need... but you have to make the keys price affordable for casual/new players.

Right now with the coming changes many people have the feeling that they've wasted hundreds of hours farming dungeons... future tests will say if it's really the case but I have the feeling that several people stopped doing undaunted pledges.
I'm not sure vet trials are easier for casual new players.
It's never a good thing when end game dungeons (DLC for example)/trials/events are doable by less than 10% of the community or when people start to feel they've wasted their time to reach a goal (armor/moster set, upgrade them to yellow) and finaly get nerfed.

Keep us informed of any future changes and thanks again for the communication you've made.

DHale

This is really dissapointing. Why bother with a cp tree if you are just going to keep nerfing things for baddies, whiners, forum warriors, twitch stream followers, newbies, casuals and EP. I won't even gold my armor out because because things are not tweaked they're obliterated. Really sad... I have no other words.

reesenorman

FoolishHuman wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Betheny wrote: »

Gamers who need things "simplified" shouldn't be playing games!

So because i'm an older gamer and slower... I shouldn't be playing games? That's a pretty narrow view don't you think?

You're not that old yet mate, a more complex rotation is just a matter of practice. A LOT of it, just to get the muscle memory down. The "over 40" crowd in my guild do just fine, no reflex problems or slowness. They do say their fingers hurt a little after hours of PVP play, but it's totally worth it.

Besides, I plan on playing video games until they stick me in the ground dead. It's awesome that some of you older guys are still playing.

PS: If you think a 3.5 second curse is too short, how about a 6 second shield?

So I'm supposed to train hours on end for my hobby just to not be kicked from some dungeon? Look at some of the posts here what some people expect from other players.
I'm only 31, but I can already notice that I have trouble keeping up with young teenage boys who are faster, can play longer hours and so on. And it's not just this game, all games are designed to be ever faster and require shorter reaction times or insane time investments. That's not what skill should be about. Situational awareness, strategy, these things are dead in MMOs. All you do is copy a build from the internet, learn a rotation by heart and then click as fast as you can.
Now people are angry that their numbers are gonna be a bit lower, but that's also not what gaming is about. I think simplifying is a good thing sometimes, but every time game developers talk about it they get shouted down like in here. And then what we get is power creep in all games and ever faster reaction times. I don't think that's the right way to go.

I think skill is defined at how well you do everything your role requires, a good dd will know how to push the limits of there classes (dps) while staying alive and following the strategy. I dont think you should be good at something without investing lots of time into it and highest scores are still being broken... if you wanna see strategies go into trials and try and beat some scores, strategising is NOT dead. You are the reason we are getting patches like this so the bad can catchup to the good without any real time invested into developing your abilities.

Birdovic

@ZOS_RichLambert

Hey Rich, thanks so much for this Thread, it's exactly what many people wanted.
Knowing what you guys based specific decisions on, and overall more communication.

For the changes:

Proc Sets:
I agree with Proc set changes affecting both PvE and PvP, mainly people complained because they are used to running through dungeons at current difficulty (VERY easy). That's because grinding for specific Sets asks for many runs, so people want to waste as few time per run as possible. By dealing less damage, each run takes a little longer. Increasing overall Boss damage only is not the right thing to do, it's really just annoying.

Velocious/Haunting Curse:
Now, I've played the sorcerer since Elder Scrolls Online launched, and I learned to appreciate this ability so much, in so many different situations, that I certainly can tell it's great as it is.

That said - you can tell - I'm against this change.
This is one of the best abilities because it's fun to use and feels super rewarding if you pull off a combo to successfully take down your opponent.
Not to mention a learning curve, you really get the feel of improving.

I see what you are trying to do with haunting curse, but please don't change velocious for that purpose.
My suggestion: Incorporate haunting curse into daedric prey.
Why:
- Pets benefit from the 12sec duration way more since the damage Buff has more time to bring in additional Dps, especially because the amount of volatile familiars pulses increased too, also the atronach lasts longer than current daedric preys 6sec
- Pet builds have less space for active abilities, so it's perfect even on the back bar, to keep the haunting curse going and supporting your pets, freeing a slot on your main bar
- Both playstyles remain, just pet builds get a new weapon in their arsenals (haunting + daedric prey as one ability)

The Atronach 25% Damage boost:
This was a good idea, however on not-pet-heavy builds the atronach still is not very appealing.
My suggestion:
Combine both current Morphs into 1
(AoE + stronger atronach) and add the 25% damage boost only on this morph.
Let the 2nd Morph on the other hand give Minor Berserk while the atronach is alive, or simply increased impact Damage on activation.

This gives fitting morphs to 2 different playstyles.


Edit:
Could you guys please fix the vampire Maxer next PTS? It does nothing and I really want to give the new Batswarm a try
Also mages guild, fighters guild and i think undaunted abilities are all on lv1 and cannot be morphed, while the ability trees are maxed.

kwisatz

Caff32 wrote: »

Betheny wrote: »

It's actually quite offensive come to think of it that @ZOS_RichLambert seems to think "older gamers" need things simplified...maybe their fingers don't mash buttons *quite* as fast, but their minds definitely can work out a build and rotation to play with just the same.

Simplifying things simply removes choice and build diversity.

I'm almost 40 and I'll put my DPS up against anybody. My reflexes are as sharp as ever, thank you very much. Age has nothing to do with it.

Now get off my **** lawn!

"Almost 40" is not precisely what we could call an "older player". There is plenty of gran'pas and gran'mas running out there (50+, 60+, 70+)

Masty_Spy

Guys. They are talking about OLDER players and change SHIELDS timers to 6! couple of patches ago. lel?

Every sorc on a planet could tell you, that WE are very hard class to master. If u want to win duels in PVP against other classes and experienced players - you have to push a lot more buttons than NB for example.

We know its hard, but also - ITS CHALLENGING. And now we have a massive Curse NERF. MASSIVE. Its a core sorc ability like frags and and shields. Its a disaster.

If u want to siplify this ability - just give us 3.5-4 sec UNMORFED and make new morph for pvp and pve.

Also waiting for 10 sec shields.

pattyLtd

Thank you for responding since its impossible to get in the never ending debates with us i do really appreciate this.

Claiming its to ease rotations is fine but you can already do a decent enough rotation thats not to hard but maybe slightly less efficient without using curse.

I'm 25 and no players twice my age that are alot better then me, guess my gaming days are running out shortly hahaha jk.
I am sure i might be slightly biased to my own playstyle so i wont throw a hissyfit for once but please think of ways to prevent ice staff users unaware of what they are using to overtaunt things.

I really love my tank and i admit that i dont like that there are now going to be added features that make it in even bigger joke then it already is.

There are dungeons where i have change my gear because i dont want to be utterly useless bc im one of the tree roles.
But ill,just see what were up against when it gets to live.

PS4 so no pts i base everything i say on the patch notes amd assumptions

PF1901

Seems "simplifying" is the keyword here.
Well, do what you have to do, I've given up any hope for now.
Let me quote this guy here, he nailed it:

riVALry9 wrote: »

..You are not creating diversity, you are taking it away...

modaretto

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Betheny wrote: »

Gamers who need things "simplified" shouldn't be playing games!

So because i'm an older gamer and slower... I shouldn't be playing games? That's a pretty narrow view don't you think?

There is really a lot to do in this game, starting from trading and ending on trials or pvp. Not all content is for everyone. For me it is not pvp or crafting. For others it will not or can't be end game content. because if for example you are a tank and your reaction time is slower, which results in let's say losing taunt then yeah perhaps you shouldn't be trying to do that when there are 11 other people in group affected by it and wanting to progress. Which does not mean you can't do trials at all because there will be guilds and groups that are on similar level and will progress at a different speed.

Which brings us to this topic that not everyone should be thrown into one bag and artificially brought to similar level. I can only trust this is not the case and this game will not be about participation prizes only.

Banana

I think balance must be the new word for nerf

Birdovic

Banana wrote: »

I think balance must be the new word for nerf

Well, you have to nerf or Buff stuff to bring it up or down to a comparable situation with other classes or abilities in a sense, so it's not really new, balance happens through those 2.

Betheny

.

Banana wrote: »

I think balance must be the new word for nerf

That was last year's term. This year it's "simplify" = nerf.

pieratsos

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

This doesn’t mean all classes are perfectly equal in all ways or that we want to remove skill from the game.

Simplifying rotations and making abilities more noob friendly does exactly that. The huge gap between "good" and "bad" players isnt just because of skill but because of gear. People can make ridiculous builds, the numbers are out of control and nerfing a couple of abilities isnt gonna change that. If you want to close that gap then put softcaps back into the game. There is no other way to balance the game. Only softcaps can lower the ceiling, they will bring more diversity, balancing will be easier, skill will be the deciding factor without making skilled players overpowered and all players will be able to compete. Stop shooting urself in the foot by introducing more broken sets and increasing cp cap every patch. It only makes the game harder to balance. Put softcaps back in the game and then start adjusting from there. If u dont want to do this for both PVP and PVE at least do it for PVP by putting softcaps in battle spirit. PVP is where the real issues exist anyway.

priforce

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Update 13 has been out on the PTS for almost a week now and there’s been a lot of good feedback and questions posted with regards to the balance changes. I wanted to take a few moments to briefly discuss the overall direction for these changes so you can hopefully start to see why these changes are occurring.

For Update 13, our overall goal was to lessen the gap between the top and bottom. (in terms of overall damage output, coordinated vs. uncoordinated, small and large scale PVE & PVP) This doesn’t mean all classes are perfectly equal in all ways or that we want to remove skill from the game. We want to establish a solid baseline so that we can better tune and tweak balance. For this update we attacked this problem from multiple angles by doing the following:

1. Lowering the ceiling on the top damage
2. Raising the floor on the bottom damage
3. Simplifying some of the more intense rotations to make them a bit easier for players of all skill levels

Some of you will probably ask how the above goals translate into the changes we made. Here are some notes on a couple of the more hotly debated ones so you can see how they fit into the bigger picture:

• Proc Sets – This change falls directly into the “lower the ceiling” category for both PVP and PVE. We wanted to reduce the overall burst potential without dramatically lowering sustain. There have been a lot of comments on this change, specifically from the PVP side where sets not critting will not help because of the Impenetrable trait - Impen does not reduce the chance of being crit - it reduces the damage of the crit that hits you.
• Stun Removal on Blazing Spear – This change falls into the “simplify” category. We increased the duration of the damage on this ability to simplify the rotation. In addition we removed the stun component. Now the morph choices are more damage or more resources and disorient. (CC)
• Radiant Destruction – This one is definitely in the “lower the ceiling” category. It was strong in both PVE and PVP and needed adjustment.
• Haunting Curse – This one falls into the “simplify” category. The goal was to free up globals for more abilities to be cast with this change. (i.e. – every 10.5 seconds you get to use 3 more abilities) @Alpheu5 has a pretty great image that illustrates this change in this thread.

I didn't touch on every change or class, but I hope that sheds some light into how and why we've made some of the changes we've made. We have a lot more balance changes planned, but due to how our build cycle works, most of them won't make the next PTS build - they should hopefully make PTS3 though.

It should also be noted that what is on PTS now is our first pass at these changes. We’re evaluating all of them and will make adjustments based on both feedback and data collected, so please continue to test them on PTS and give feedback.

-rich

I actually agree with this approach. I also agree with a lot of Sypher and Delia's view that the super hard content needs to be toned down. I love the game, but noticed I drifted to other games when I experienced just how difficult VMA,dlc dungeons, and the trials are, and that it locked me into cookie cutter builds that aren't fun.

Uphz

Why does everything need an easy mode? When I was new I used pets because I didn't have to bar swap and I could just keep them up. Take away the 'harder' skills and there is no reason for people to improve..

Even when curse has the short duration everyone can use it but people who have been practising for a longer time will be better with the timing.

covenant_merchant

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Impen does not reduce the chance of being crit - it reduces the damage of the crit that hits you.

As a rule, PVP players know what Impen does... Which is why your idea of removing crit from proc sets will only serve to nerf PVE DPS. In PVP the problem ain't the crit, it's the fact that you can stack 3 proc sets. It doesn't matter if they won't crit, Selene + Widowmaker + Viper will still do up to 16-20k damage, depending on your build.
Please fix actual problems instead of randomly nerfing all over.

As for your decision to bring everyone to the same level, all players are equal, but some players are more equal than others. There's a thing called progression curve - newbies shouldn't have everything be given to them. At the moment, what makes a difference between a good magicka sorcerer and a bad one is the ability to keep up curse and pressure on the opponent. With a 6 second curse, not only is this dumbed down, it will also make cleansing/purging it that much easier.
And that goes without mentioning the 12 second echo, which is absolute garbage. Either the player's dead - or he isn't and you are on the defensive. The AOE from the curse is absolutely laughable, and has always been. Players don't use it for that.

Magicka sorcerer isn't made for battles of attrition - it is outsustained and outdamage by any heavy armor user. We cannot wait 6 seconds without losing a lot of pressure in the process. Not to mention that atm, curse is a great way to keep nightblades out of cloak. Good luck doing it with a 6 second explosion..

New players and scrubs who refuse to improve do not use curse. It's above their level. When I started on sorc, I didn't even think of slotting it in PVE. By nerfing a vital PVP sorc skill, you're taking away from our already low damage and forcing magicka sorcs to run in zergballs even more because we'll only have lightning destro ulti and elemental ring left.

I've been on PTS. I'm still trying to work with Haunting, and it is simply horrible. People cleanse it, nightblades flee. The pressure is harder to keep up, and not due to a lack of skill, but simply because the abilities are expensive, and weaving force pulse and waiting for that blessed frag proc is not enough to put someone on the defensive.

While I thank you for the clarification, I still feel it's a bad decision. A terrible, terrible decision that will harm every sorc still trying to play alone or in small-medium sized groups. As for PVE? As I said, noobs don't care. And once a player starts getting the rotation of the class and its mechanics, it isn't that difficult to get a hang of the 3.5 second curse rotation. And if he has trouble, there is always the other morph, which already lasted 6 seconds.

Please, I beg of you, revert that change. Don't go live through it. You're massively gimping any solo-smallscale PVP sorc out there by nerfing curse in such a way to appeal to new players who won't even appreciate your changes because it doesn't impact their playstyle.

(And reading from the comments, turns out you do play sorcerer. Which begs me to ask, do you PVP? And if so, do you zergball with AOE only or have you even tried the changes you preach and were actually satisfied with them?)

Or at the very least, since bar the rare exception, you always go through with whatever questionable idea stemmed in your mind, please make curse unpurgeable. As it is, in 6 seconds, it is and will be purged/cleansed, making it worthless.

Also, please stopping sorcs into the pet direction, which once again is obviously the intent with these changes, no matter what justification you might give regarding "new players eased up into the class". As I said, new players DO NOT CARE. They're new. 3.5 or 6 second curse hardly matters to them when there are so many other skills they use, or do not, because once again they're new. Yes, pets got a buff in resistances. Great. The problem is though, they still aren't reliable open world, and don't do enough damage to justify 4 slots in total. 6 if you're using overload as a support 3rd bar.

EDIT:

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

[*] Haunting Curse – This one falls into the “simplify” category. The goal was to free up globals for more abilities to be cast with this change. (i.e. – every 10.5 seconds you get to use 3 more abilities)

What abilities? Force pulse weaving + waiting for frags proc? Sorcs have no instant DPS class-based ability to begin with. This will only make the class a lot more boring to play. Pulse - pulse - pulse- frags - pulse - pulse - pulse - pulse. Sounds tiresome just by thinking of it.

EDIT 2:
In the name of balance, where is the change to Tremorscale? It is by far the most cancerous thing out there at the moment in PVP. 70% snare for 4 seconds with a 100% uptime given how much stamina builds spam ransack? How did you miss all the complaint threads about it? Or the whole issue with this set to begin with when you put it live?

Asmael

If you have a little bit of sense, don't quote this post directly. Please. Or just tag me with @Asmael

@ZOS_RichLambert First and foremost: thank you for the feedback, extremely appreciated. Secondly: this is going to be a very long post, so I hope you got a cup of coffee next to you.

I can absolutely understand the reasoning behind the changes, but I don't agree with the changes themselves, as there are quite a few collateral victims.

I'll be blunt: there isn't a single reason to bring a stamina damage dealer (DD) in a trial next patch. Not. A. Single. One. We have 0 buffs to look forward to, only nerfs, while magicka gets the extra 8% STDPS (single target DPS) or AoE DPS based on staff used, so they have some nice theorycrafting going on for next patch. For stamina, the change to bow simply won't work. The current best stamina setup will not change, and it doesn't benefit from this change at all.

That being said: I want to go over the current PvE balance of stamina / magicka in the current patch, and how things will change with the PTS, and most importantly: why.

DDs can be evaluted thru multiple angles: survivability, AoE potency, single target potency, cleave damage, melee / ranged, sustain, utility and survivability. I'll go through each of these points for both stamina and magicka.

AoE potency

In the current patch, we have 2 main stamina DDs seeing competitive use: DKs and sorcerers, who happen to the stamina DDs with the highest AoE potency of all stamina classes. This is a first point, because it defines your capability of destroying packs of mobs, which is critical to a group, since it represents approximately 50%~ of a trial's opposition.

• Stamina DKs rely on Standard to buff up their AoE capabilities. It is getting nerfed with next patch.
• Stamina sorcs rely on Hurricane as well as strong damage dealing passives. Hurricane is getting nerfed patch.
• Stamina nightblades have only passives, as Power Extraction is a weaker version of Steel Tornado.
• Stamina templars have only passives, as Biting jabs has a very small AoE.

Clearing tactics for trash packs rely on the careful use of ultimates and positioning to minimize the time required. The introduction of the Destro ult has increased magicka's potential in this regard, as you'll not always get the opportunity to stack up mobs in an efficient enough manner to make Meteor worthwhile (at least not as much as the destro ultimate).

As it currently stands, for a pack burn, magicka DPS is overall higher than stamina. The strongest stamina option is stam DK with Standard and caltrops, which can actually compete with magicka options as it currently. Seeing a 25% nerf to Standard's damage buff (15% = 20% * ( 1 - 0.25 )) is going to increase the gap in terms of maximum AoE potential between the specs.

Other point: caltrops see its use limited due the stacking made impossible. I'm absolutely aware of how messed up things would be in PvP if this were to be stackable again, so I'm not going to suggest that.

For short: the next patch is a rather small nerf to stamina potency, magicka will remain on a rather similar ground. This is not what I'd consider the most critical, since stamina builds are not currently used for their AoE potency anyway.

Single Target potency

THIS, is why stamina is no more competitive next patch. Preliminar tests of magicka single target DPS has shown either similar results or an increase. Stamina is taking a pretty huge hit in this regard, as there is no extra 8% single target option coming for them. One Tamriel already reduced the gap quite a bit, next patch will remove it completely.

To go over the current stamina options:

• Stamina DKs currently have the highest single target DPS ingame. This is going to be reduced both the overall stamina nerf, but also the Standard nerf.
• Stamina sorcerers and stamina nightblades are on a rather even ground. Excluding the overall nerfs, sorcerers will do very slighty less with the Hurricane change (nothing significant otherwise for NBs)
• Stamina templars... with no significant class ultimate, passives outclassed by sorcerers, jabs being an "overall good, master of none" ability, they are lacking if they solely use Biting Jabs. Drastically lacking.

This is the most critical part, as Single Target DPS is currently stamina DDs' niche. If you remove it, you remove the last reason to have stamina DDs in competitive groups.

Single target DPS is required, as it allows groups to help skipping mechanics. Their (stamina DDs) sole purpose in raid is to shorten boss fights.

If you want to remove the gap between magicka and stamina, you'll need to change something else. If you don't, I hope you invested a few skill points in role playing for your stamina sorc.

Cleave damage

Cleave damage can be defined as "damage dealt around a target while specifically focusing this target". To make this clear: If a magicka sorcerer focuses a boss, he's going to use Liquid Lightning, Elemental Blockade, Velocious Curse ( ), Force Pulse and Crystal Fragments.

The "Cleave" damage part is the damage dealt to adds by using Liquid Lightning, Elemental Blockade and Velocious curse.

The interesting part is that, when comparing magicka vs stamina parses, stamina has highly "focused" damage. Their cleave damage is extremely low (for a 56k parse as a stam DK, my cleave damage was 4k, which means 52k DPS was done on the boss).

When looking at current stamina builds:

• DKs have extremely low cleave damage. They can help it a bit with Caltrops and Noxious Breath, altho due to their role in a trial, it is recommended to favor Rending Slashes of Noxious Breath.
• NBs have the lowest cleave damage possible. Endless Hail. Caltrops if they slot it, Rend / Dawnbreaker as ultimates, and that's it.
• Sorcerers have the highest cleave damage of all stamina builds due in big part to Hurricane.
• Templars have either extremely bad cleave damage (maelstrom daggers setup) or good cleave damage (jabs setup)

Current trial tactics favor focusing the boss as much as possible to shorten the fight (and push higher scores), which is why having the necessary cleave damage to kill the adds without having to focus them at any point has become a strong point of magicka.

That being said, I don't think this is the most critical point.


Melee / Ranged

This is going to vary a lot depending on content, but in literally all cases, you won't be able to have 8 melees without taking unecessary risks:

• At least 1 ranged DD is required on Mantikora
• Zhaj, the first boss of vMoL, is notorious for severely punishing groups with a majority of melees. It is possible to have up to 6 melees with extremely good positioning (tank included), but you're shooting yourself in the feet by not picking as many ranged DDs as possible, as they also get the least DPS downtime from curses
• The Mage in AA will grow harder the more melees you have due to chain lightnings, as you need to clear the minimages (reflections).
• The Warrior have a few "Cleave" moves which represent a risk of one shot for melees.

There are other cases, just wanted to give a few.

Why is it related to stamina / magicka? Stamina has currently no good pure ranged options. Their lack of efficient class ranged options means they need to rely on a bow / bow build which currently doesn't compete with the more classic DW / Bow setup.

Because a bow / bow setup is not effective enough, stamina is either forced to be either underperforming or melee. Those trial conditions make competitive full stamina DDs raid inexistent.

The change to the bow passive is a good first step in this regard, so well done, but it's not going to be enough. I'd honestly don't want to see trials change to make it possible to have only 8 melees at all time, since the DDs also have to adapt to a given situation. Changing trials accordingly could also limit the mechanics in play, "a trial must be doable by 8 melees or bust it" isn't exactly great.

This is not a critical point, but an extremely nice addition.

Sustain

This is actually a strong point of stamina for all content. A stamina DD is almost self sustainable, as in they might only need a shard once in a while if a healer is using a Master restoration staff. There are no changes to stamina sustain in the next patch as it currently, only magicka with the introduction of Minor magickasteal. To go over the classes:

• Stamina DKs have the Earthen Heart passives, between Battle Roar and Helping hands (used either thru Igneous shield or Molten Armaments), they are in a very good spot.
• Stamina sorcerers have Dark Deal, a reduction to stamina cost with Unholy Knowledge and an extra 20% stam recovery.
• Stamina NBs have Siphoning Strikes.
• Stamina templars, you are the exception in a bad way. They do get 4% cost reduction, but Biting Jabs is an extremely expensive ability to spam (2903 stamina), and they don't have a good active way to recover stamina.

For magicka, their sustain comes from their healers in the current patch: Siphon Spirit, Worm's Cult set, Elemental Drain and Orbs. Next patch, Worm's Cult is probably going to be mandatory on a healer, and Orbs will need to pop all the time.

Stamina's strong point, heavy reliance on healers for magicka. Only change I would ask for is to slighty reduce the cost of Biting Jabs for templar (from 2903 to 2700 for instance). For magicka, the reliance on the healers make random groups an absolute PITA for magicka DDs, as you're not guranteed to get enough group support, and will likely spend a pretty large amount of time heavy attacking if you're a templar, DK or sorc, especially next patch.

Utility

Stamina provides completely different utility from magicka, and it's going to vary a lot depending on the class:

• Magicka templars provide the Spear synergy and Purify, they also have Nova if required for the mitigation.
• Magicka NBs can provide extra offhealing with Funnel Health (sees little use as Force Pulse is favored) and Veil of Blades for the mitigation if there's no Nova Available.
• Magicka DKs provide a damage boost thru Engulfing Flames and control with Chains, Deep Breath (interrupt) and snares / roots (Eruption / Burning Talons if used, altho Talons tend to see less play due to the cost and "meh" range)
• Magicka sorcerers provide the Conduit Synergy, Negates, and general OPness at doing MoL backyard (nurf! :O)

Stamina utility comes from constant snares from caltrops, access to some of the utility of magicka (chains for DKs, tho to a less extent due to the limited magicka pool) and backup group healing with Echoing Vigor which helps for dangerous trash pulls (Overcharge / Poison / constant damage)

Not a critical point, they both provide different utility. Bringing the extra group healing might be underrated, but that does make a difference in some situations.

Survivability

This is why stamina sees very little competitive play. In an environment where every single death costs a lot of time and points, staying alive has never been so critical, for the absolute best scores, if even a single person dies, the raid has to restart from the beginning.

Deadly Cloak has become pretty much mandatory due to the amount of AoEs in trials, Vigor is mostly for those situations where you take constant damage and have no guarantee to be saved by your healer. Damage shields are also important, as they allow you to limit repeated health damage and potential one shots.

The main point about staying alive in trials is that you'll almost always die because of burst damage due to a combination of mechanics, which means that the most important is to survive burst damage. Vigor helps little in this regard.

I'll go over stamina survivability:

• Stamina DKs have the best survivability of all classes: between Deadly Cloak, Standard's mitigation, many defensive passives, Igneous Shield and thus stronger Vigor healing, they can stay alive about as well as magicka in pretty much all circumstances.
• Stamina sorcerers have good mitigation thanks to Hurricane and Bound Armaments, they can also use Surge and have a full bar of survivability-oriented abilities with Overload. They do miss a few slots without Overload to slot as much as they need, between Bone Shield, Surge and Dark Deal.
• Stamina templars do have Radiant Ward if they want a shield that doesn't use their stamina pool, which is a nice plus, and a few decent mitigation-oriented passives.
• Stamina nightblades have it hard. No easy way to keep Shadow Barrier up, you can get minor Ward & Resolve with Mirage, as well as the extra dodge chance, and... that's it. You do have Deadly Cloak and the (meh) Bone Shield to prevent burst damage, but be prepared to bring in your A+-game if you want to stay alive.

Magicka can be summed up in two words: Annulment morphs. Harness Magicka and Dampen Magic provide shields at the very least twice as big as stamina ones, allowing them to limit the risks by a very large margin.

If someone asks in the forum whether he should bring a stamina or magicka DD for vMoL (especially HM), the answer is going to be universally magicka. Especially on the Rakkhat fight, your health as a stamina DD will drop extremely low multiple times (platform change, Unstable Void Projectile, execute phase, Lunar Phase...).

So yes, this is a critical point, since it is the number #1 reason stamina isn't used.

---

TL;DR:

• Survivability issues make magicka a better pick for difficult / risky content
• The trials mechanics and stamina being pretty much forced into being melee is an artifical limit to the maximum number of stamina DDs
• Stamina DDs' niche - single target DPS - is getting nerfed. This is the only real reason to bring stamina DDs in a trial right now. There's no such niche in the current PTS, and means stamina DDs total extinction in competitive 12-men trials.
• Currently: the part of stamina DDs in a trial group (8 DDs) is less than 25% overall. You'll have either 0, 1 or 2 stamina DDs.
• This post took 1h 12mn 07s to write, so I'm going to make some coffee right now if you don't mind.

- Asmael, Hodor scrub