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Status effects and how to make them good
luchtt
✭✭✭✭
hello i am epic endgame pve player who knows a thing or 2 about the game usually here is my take that will be ignored (i am sending it into the void (eso forums))
apologies for the large wall of text but I really feel this needs to be said, although i sadly feel it will be ignored.
As for my credentials: I have pretty good confidence in my view on status effects aswell, since i've researched them extensively since the release of the infinite archive to optimize damage. I currently hold the duo world record for it together with hyperioxes. (Although it is currently being beaten but the run is still ongoing, good luck to them)
Status effects have been a bit of a weird settled meta for a while now, changing them was an eventual thing the combat developers would have to face but now is not the right time. Hybridization has STILL not been finished (potions, minor class buffs and foods) and there are many more base issues with combat that are still yet to be addressed, not to mention slottable passives on both bars still is missing 60% of the types of skills that require this. It's completely out of place, but perhaps it will foreshadow some changes coming with scribing (leave it in the kitchen please if this is the case, and if you choose to continue, please turn the electricity on in the kitchen i noticed it is currently off)
As stated by the developer comment about the main status effect change, burning poisoned and hemmoraging have been the dominant status effects for quite a while now. this is for a reason, and it is partially because their damage is high. The direct damage status effects simply cannot keep up, their damage is also very low, much lower than the coefficients for burning poisoned and hemorraging.
The base idea is fine, buff the direct damage types to be more on-par with their dot status effect counterparts. However, nerfing the dot-types was not the right move, it just nerfs damage overall. why? because the direct damage status effects are barely better now in the grand scheme. Their damage is not the problem, and this is best illustrated by warden:
Warden has a passive that buffs Chilled damage, true. but that alone is not enough to make chill it's highest damage, its it's proc rate. Warden has 2 skills that effectively guarantee a chill proc each time they do damage, resulting in multiple chill procs per second. this is what the other direct damage status effects are missing. They fall behind burning, poison, and hemorraging not directly because their damage or effects were low, it is because the rate at which you can proc them, even if they had 2x the amount of damage, will STILL fall behind the dot status effects. This is also evidenced by the fact that the devs had to nerf burning a bit, and it still remains a top option despite it being massively pulled back from it's lead on other status effects.
To buff status effect usasge, and to see status effects specifically being built around, there needs to be 2 major changes. Proc rate, and proc chance. Nerfing charged in hindsight is quite a hilariously opposite desicion because if we take a look at how difficult it is to actually proc status effects, it becomes evident that there is only 2 ways to proc them consistently enough to keep say, 70% + uptime on a dot one for example.
Enchantment's have a 20% base chance to proc
Single Target Direct damage, has 10%
Area of Effect Direct damage has 5%
Single Target dot has 3%
Area of Effect has 1%
These are base chances, to work out how charged and other modifiers work on this ,simply count up all the additional status effect chance you have and multiply it by the base chance of an ability, and then you will see it's per-damage-tick proc chance.
For example: 2 hand charged + arcanist status effect passive + destro staff passives:
235 + 55 + 100 = 390
The skill in question lets say is Single Target Direct damage, this will result in a (10 x 3.9) + 10 = 49% chance to proc status effects when you hit a direct damage ability.
There are a few skills (warden's winters revenge, and arctic blast, and formerly barbed trap) who have their base chance increased massivley leading to near 100% proc chance ,which is why trap was so strong before the nerf from today's patch.
There is also a few unstated rules which are very hard to find (please stop adding ridiculously specific exceptions to combat logic)
Status effects cannot proc status effects, this falls under the procs cannot proc procs rule.
and this one is probably not very well known but: Multi-hit abilities (in 1 GCD) have their status effect proc chance per hit equalized to be more akin to that of status effect proc chance per GCD, rather than hit. This mainly affects templar's jabs and rapid strikes/bloodthirst from the dual wield skill line.
Anyway, now that we understand how this works:
AOE dot and Single Target DOT have 1 and 3% base chance, this has (compared to the other types) very big diminishing returns on charged and other ways to increase proc chance. For trap for example, it will now only yield a ~10-15% chance(if you have 2 charged which seems to be the meta now) to proc hemmoraging. This alone is not enough to keep up the 3 stacks required for it to out damage it's live counterpart, hardly enough to keep it up for more than 30% of the time. But fair, it was strong for far too long and it's a weird skill, it's downfall was inevitable. but it exposes a massive problem which increasing proc chance should fix, that being the fact that there is VERY little ways to proc the direct damage status effects at a high rate. The dev comment states ''But you’ll need to find additional sources of Bleed Damage to keep up the pressure.'' This is pretty funny, because if we take a look at how we can proc bleeding it quickly becomes obvious that there is literally no way to keep up 3 hemo stacks consistently without changing your entire build to solely focus on it. The same is true for other status effects, but especially the direct damage types.
We can pretty much ignore AOE dot and ST dot as potential ways to consistenly proc status effects, since their chance is so disgustingly low it might aswell be nothing. the best you can possibly get for aoe dot for example is lower than NO MODIFIERS single target. st dot is similar but slightly higher.
Therefore our only somewhat relevant contenders are Enchantments, Singletarget Direct, and Aoe Direct. But due to the way status effect chance modifiers affects the base chance, aoe direct is almost in the same condition as the dot types, with 2 charged it now only comes up to about 15-25% aswell depending on class/other stuff. This directly hurts direct damage status effects because without a consistent way to proc them multiple times per second (like warden with chill) they automatically just fall behind dot status effects even if their damage was insanely high.
The way to fix this and make status effects much more relevant in the game is to overhaul status effect proc chance completely, and encourage stacking into 1 type in some way (Hemoraging stacks are a step in this direction but lack the groundwork to work atm, and if no further change happens to it, it will simply be forgotten and only wardens will see hemo procs) Simply buffing the *** out of status effect procs is a way to do this, but perhaps stacking the chance itself while a specific status effect is active could be even better for the desired change the developers want to see. I quote ''Status effects were our main priority, as almost all of them have received new additional functionality changes to help make them feel more diverse from one another.''
If you want to make status effects feel diverse from one another, and encourage building into status effects consider the following types of changes:
-Major/minor debuffs relating to status effect proc chance on enemies, or status effect damage specifically. This helps groups get more out of status effects aswell.
-Unique class damage buffs similar to Engulfing Flames and Encratis, that buff specific damage types like Magic, or Frost. This also helps make more diverse raid/dungeon compositions work, and could keep class identiy more in-tact especially when playing solo/in dungeons.
-Do not standardize the damage of status effect, instead increase and decrease their damage based on how easy it is to proc their relevant effects, this makes for more diversity in their gameplay feel, as was the stated goal, for example, if you want to spec into something that is hard to proc, you will have a harder time proccing it sure but the reward could be worth it and feel impactful, while a common status effect like burning can be procced much more when specced into, but yield quite a bit lower damage per proc.
-Flat increase of all status effect chance proc chance, and buffing charged back.
-Add more class passives relating to status effects. Ideas for example for warden have been floating around for it to have a similar passive to Dragonknight's Combustion: Bleed and chill get increased damage, but also restore rescources (this especially would be nice as warden is currently in sustain hell on tamriel, especially warden pve dps aaa)
-(as stated previously) make status effects have an incentive to focus on one individual status effect, so if you spec into it more you will be rewarded, rather than just slotting the highest damage ones regardless of situation (as for example on live, poison/burning on dual wield frontbar is just better than any other enchants)
This was written from a more pve-centric standpoint. If status effects prove too OP in pvp, a battle spirit rule could be added that diminishes the potency or proc chance of status effects while in cyrodill, IC and battlegrounds, although to be honest time to kill is so high right now in pvp that maybe high amount of damage would be welcomed. My point of view probably also isnt perfect, but as it currently stands, if not much else is done during week 3, status effects will just recieve an overall nerf in both damage and use-case in pve, since poison and hemo have now been overall nerfed, and the other newly buffed status effect chances aren't really being utulized right now in any hugely changing way, aside from ''huh, i now deal slightly more damage with my essentially the same rotation as before while I slot charged + charged dual wield and burning/poison or burning/shock glyph''
apologies for the large wall of text but I really feel this needs to be said, although i sadly feel it will be ignored.
As for my credentials: I have pretty good confidence in my view on status effects aswell, since i've researched them extensively since the release of the infinite archive to optimize damage. I currently hold the duo world record for it together with hyperioxes. (Although it is currently being beaten but the run is still ongoing, good luck to them)
Status effects have been a bit of a weird settled meta for a while now, changing them was an eventual thing the combat developers would have to face but now is not the right time. Hybridization has STILL not been finished (potions, minor class buffs and foods) and there are many more base issues with combat that are still yet to be addressed, not to mention slottable passives on both bars still is missing 60% of the types of skills that require this. It's completely out of place, but perhaps it will foreshadow some changes coming with scribing (leave it in the kitchen please if this is the case, and if you choose to continue, please turn the electricity on in the kitchen i noticed it is currently off)
As stated by the developer comment about the main status effect change, burning poisoned and hemmoraging have been the dominant status effects for quite a while now. this is for a reason, and it is partially because their damage is high. The direct damage status effects simply cannot keep up, their damage is also very low, much lower than the coefficients for burning poisoned and hemorraging.
The base idea is fine, buff the direct damage types to be more on-par with their dot status effect counterparts. However, nerfing the dot-types was not the right move, it just nerfs damage overall. why? because the direct damage status effects are barely better now in the grand scheme. Their damage is not the problem, and this is best illustrated by warden:
Warden has a passive that buffs Chilled damage, true. but that alone is not enough to make chill it's highest damage, its it's proc rate. Warden has 2 skills that effectively guarantee a chill proc each time they do damage, resulting in multiple chill procs per second. this is what the other direct damage status effects are missing. They fall behind burning, poison, and hemorraging not directly because their damage or effects were low, it is because the rate at which you can proc them, even if they had 2x the amount of damage, will STILL fall behind the dot status effects. This is also evidenced by the fact that the devs had to nerf burning a bit, and it still remains a top option despite it being massively pulled back from it's lead on other status effects.
To buff status effect usasge, and to see status effects specifically being built around, there needs to be 2 major changes. Proc rate, and proc chance. Nerfing charged in hindsight is quite a hilariously opposite desicion because if we take a look at how difficult it is to actually proc status effects, it becomes evident that there is only 2 ways to proc them consistently enough to keep say, 70% + uptime on a dot one for example.
Enchantment's have a 20% base chance to proc
Single Target Direct damage, has 10%
Area of Effect Direct damage has 5%
Single Target dot has 3%
Area of Effect has 1%
These are base chances, to work out how charged and other modifiers work on this ,simply count up all the additional status effect chance you have and multiply it by the base chance of an ability, and then you will see it's per-damage-tick proc chance.
For example: 2 hand charged + arcanist status effect passive + destro staff passives:
235 + 55 + 100 = 390
The skill in question lets say is Single Target Direct damage, this will result in a (10 x 3.9) + 10 = 49% chance to proc status effects when you hit a direct damage ability.
There are a few skills (warden's winters revenge, and arctic blast, and formerly barbed trap) who have their base chance increased massivley leading to near 100% proc chance ,which is why trap was so strong before the nerf from today's patch.
There is also a few unstated rules which are very hard to find (please stop adding ridiculously specific exceptions to combat logic)
Status effects cannot proc status effects, this falls under the procs cannot proc procs rule.
and this one is probably not very well known but: Multi-hit abilities (in 1 GCD) have their status effect proc chance per hit equalized to be more akin to that of status effect proc chance per GCD, rather than hit. This mainly affects templar's jabs and rapid strikes/bloodthirst from the dual wield skill line.
Anyway, now that we understand how this works:
AOE dot and Single Target DOT have 1 and 3% base chance, this has (compared to the other types) very big diminishing returns on charged and other ways to increase proc chance. For trap for example, it will now only yield a ~10-15% chance(if you have 2 charged which seems to be the meta now) to proc hemmoraging. This alone is not enough to keep up the 3 stacks required for it to out damage it's live counterpart, hardly enough to keep it up for more than 30% of the time. But fair, it was strong for far too long and it's a weird skill, it's downfall was inevitable. but it exposes a massive problem which increasing proc chance should fix, that being the fact that there is VERY little ways to proc the direct damage status effects at a high rate. The dev comment states ''But you’ll need to find additional sources of Bleed Damage to keep up the pressure.'' This is pretty funny, because if we take a look at how we can proc bleeding it quickly becomes obvious that there is literally no way to keep up 3 hemo stacks consistently without changing your entire build to solely focus on it. The same is true for other status effects, but especially the direct damage types.
We can pretty much ignore AOE dot and ST dot as potential ways to consistenly proc status effects, since their chance is so disgustingly low it might aswell be nothing. the best you can possibly get for aoe dot for example is lower than NO MODIFIERS single target. st dot is similar but slightly higher.
Therefore our only somewhat relevant contenders are Enchantments, Singletarget Direct, and Aoe Direct. But due to the way status effect chance modifiers affects the base chance, aoe direct is almost in the same condition as the dot types, with 2 charged it now only comes up to about 15-25% aswell depending on class/other stuff. This directly hurts direct damage status effects because without a consistent way to proc them multiple times per second (like warden with chill) they automatically just fall behind dot status effects even if their damage was insanely high.
The way to fix this and make status effects much more relevant in the game is to overhaul status effect proc chance completely, and encourage stacking into 1 type in some way (Hemoraging stacks are a step in this direction but lack the groundwork to work atm, and if no further change happens to it, it will simply be forgotten and only wardens will see hemo procs) Simply buffing the *** out of status effect procs is a way to do this, but perhaps stacking the chance itself while a specific status effect is active could be even better for the desired change the developers want to see. I quote ''Status effects were our main priority, as almost all of them have received new additional functionality changes to help make them feel more diverse from one another.''
If you want to make status effects feel diverse from one another, and encourage building into status effects consider the following types of changes:
-Major/minor debuffs relating to status effect proc chance on enemies, or status effect damage specifically. This helps groups get more out of status effects aswell.
-Unique class damage buffs similar to Engulfing Flames and Encratis, that buff specific damage types like Magic, or Frost. This also helps make more diverse raid/dungeon compositions work, and could keep class identiy more in-tact especially when playing solo/in dungeons.
-Do not standardize the damage of status effect, instead increase and decrease their damage based on how easy it is to proc their relevant effects, this makes for more diversity in their gameplay feel, as was the stated goal, for example, if you want to spec into something that is hard to proc, you will have a harder time proccing it sure but the reward could be worth it and feel impactful, while a common status effect like burning can be procced much more when specced into, but yield quite a bit lower damage per proc.
-Flat increase of all status effect chance proc chance, and buffing charged back.
-Add more class passives relating to status effects. Ideas for example for warden have been floating around for it to have a similar passive to Dragonknight's Combustion: Bleed and chill get increased damage, but also restore rescources (this especially would be nice as warden is currently in sustain hell on tamriel, especially warden pve dps aaa)
-(as stated previously) make status effects have an incentive to focus on one individual status effect, so if you spec into it more you will be rewarded, rather than just slotting the highest damage ones regardless of situation (as for example on live, poison/burning on dual wield frontbar is just better than any other enchants)
This was written from a more pve-centric standpoint. If status effects prove too OP in pvp, a battle spirit rule could be added that diminishes the potency or proc chance of status effects while in cyrodill, IC and battlegrounds, although to be honest time to kill is so high right now in pvp that maybe high amount of damage would be welcomed. My point of view probably also isnt perfect, but as it currently stands, if not much else is done during week 3, status effects will just recieve an overall nerf in both damage and use-case in pve, since poison and hemo have now been overall nerfed, and the other newly buffed status effect chances aren't really being utulized right now in any hugely changing way, aside from ''huh, i now deal slightly more damage with my essentially the same rotation as before while I slot charged + charged dual wield and burning/poison or burning/shock glyph''
18
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bar_boss_A✭✭✭Awesome take.
Straight out buffing proc chance with the introduced buffs will result in a power creep and further strengthen the current PvP meta as it is basically free damage. The damage per tick would have to be re-reduced to match the current power.
I really like your idea about giving classes unique status effect interaction passives. But why stop at classes? Some races could have similar passives - it is quite boring to have three classes just giving the same 200 weapon and spell damage.1 -
Avran_Sylt✭✭✭✭✭
✭Wonder if they ever pivoted into status buildup (EG: Elden Ring) instead of % chance if it would make DoT/AoE effects more consistent to balance.3 -
Tyrant_Tim✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Great write-up!
Changing Hemorrhage to rely on stack build-up is going to be nothing but a nerf in PvE.
Thankfully, they teased the Templar colored Barbed Trap for Update 42 just for them to remove it’s functionality for the very class Update 41.
Edited by Tyrant_Tim on 5 February 2024 22:580 -
Tannus15✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭mostly agree.
i don't know why flame is literally the only damage type that has been focused on for so long.
I don't know why sets like netch have been left to rot for so long. Frostbite is a good example of an elemental focused set.
why would anyone run 400 weapon damage for just one element when sets like yandir give you 410 weapon damage for basically the entire fight?
it's great that damage types like shock are getting lifted out of the gutter via their status effects.
that said, the hemorraging stacking idea needs reworking. it's simply too hard to build stacks with the proc chance % and the stacks are too important to the damage done.
i'm also not convinced that status effect should be such a large chunk of our damage and that the meta shift to all charged all the time is good either. I love the idea that you might choose to lean into status effects, but right now it's just use charged weapons.1 -
Amottica✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭bar_boss_A wrote: »Awesome take.
Straight out buffing proc chance with the introduced buffs will result in a power creep and further strengthen the current PvP meta as it is basically free damage. The damage per tick would have to be re-reduced to match the current power.
I really like your idea about giving classes unique status effect interaction passives. But why stop at classes? Some races could have similar passives - it is quite boring to have three classes just giving the same 200 weapon and spell damage.
My thought when I started reading it was power creep as well. The power creep this game has seen has been huge. Dialing it back some is a great idea. Especially for the end-game as most of the older trials are trivial because of the power creep. Sure, power creep makes the more challenging content easier but the idea behind the design of that content is that it offers some sort of challenge.
0 -
MashmalloMan✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭Tyrant_Tim wrote: »Great write-up!
Changing Hemorrhage to rely on stack build-up is going to be nothing but a nerf in PvE.
Thankfully, they teased the Templar colored Barbed Trap for Update 42 just for them to remove it’s functionality for the very class Update 41.
Looks more like fire/burning to me.
Templars need help, but not everything is about them. GOSH.
PC Beta - 2200+ CP
Stam Sorc Khajiit PvE/PVP Main || Stam Sorc Dark Elf PvP ||
Stam Templar Dark Elf || Stam Warden Wood Elf || Stam DK Nord || Stam Necro Orc || Stam Blade Khajiit
Mag Sorc High Elf || Mag Templar High Elf || Mag Warden Breton || Mag Necro Khajiit || Mag Blade Khajiit1 -
Tyrant_Tim✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭It’s too pale, otherwise I would agree.
That Trap Beast has Dawn’s Wrath coloration written all over it, and is closer to Templar than Dragonknight by a landslide.Edited by Tyrant_Tim on 6 February 2024 17:480 -
Necrotech_Master✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭i personally never liked the beast trap skill, it always felt slow/clunky to use
there are other skills that guarantee effects though
unleashed terror gear set guarantees reapplying hemorrhaging on every tick of its like 10-15 sec duration
necromancer ruinous scythe guarentees applying hemorrhaging on each use
the thing im disapointed about is hemorrhaging losing the mangle debuff, i think it should have some other kind of minor debuff so if you cant maintain stacks its still doing somethingplays PC/NA
handle @Necrotech_Master
active player since april 2014
i have my main house (grand topal hideaway) listed in the housing tours, it has multiple target dummies, scribing altar, and grandmaster stations (in progress being filled out), as well as almost every antiquity furnishing on display to preview them
feel free to stop by and use the facilities2 -
Maple653Soul Shriven
I will add there is an issue with unleashed terror, and it's not its final set bonus, it's the other set bonuses which arei personally never liked the beast trap skill, it always felt slow/clunky to use
there are other skills that guarantee effects though
unleashed terror gear set guarantees reapplying hemorrhaging on every tick of its like 10-15 sec duration
necromancer ruinous scythe guarentees applying hemorrhaging on each use
the thing im disapointed about is hemorrhaging losing the mangle debuff, i think it should have some other kind of minor debuff so if you cant maintain stacks its still doing something- (2 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
- (3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
- (4 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
- (2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
- (3 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
- (4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage[
as a result of this. it doesn't feel worth using even with guaranteed status effect procs just because its not affecting the other sources of damage as well.0 -
Necrotech_Master✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭
I will add there is an issue with unleashed terror, and it's not its final set bonus, it's the other set bonuses which arei personally never liked the beast trap skill, it always felt slow/clunky to use
there are other skills that guarantee effects though
unleashed terror gear set guarantees reapplying hemorrhaging on every tick of its like 10-15 sec duration
necromancer ruinous scythe guarentees applying hemorrhaging on each use
the thing im disapointed about is hemorrhaging losing the mangle debuff, i think it should have some other kind of minor debuff so if you cant maintain stacks its still doing something- (2 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
- (3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
- (4 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
- (2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
- (3 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
- (4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage[
as a result of this. it doesn't feel worth using even with guaranteed status effect procs just because its not affecting the other sources of damage as well.
i used to use unleashed for awhile, and i agree the dps provided in PVE is not better than pillar
but because it had a per target cooldown, and with the new status effect stacking it might be something interesting to use in PVPplays PC/NA
handle @Necrotech_Master
active player since april 2014
i have my main house (grand topal hideaway) listed in the housing tours, it has multiple target dummies, scribing altar, and grandmaster stations (in progress being filled out), as well as almost every antiquity furnishing on display to preview them
feel free to stop by and use the facilities0 -
kojou✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭I completely agree with the OP, but at the same time I am puzzled why anything related to status effects was touched to begin with. To me it seems like a bunch of developer work for no real value added in the game.
All they have really accomplished was a nerf to Trap and a slight buff to damage for any build that wasn't using poison or flame. Its not like any of the changes are exciting enough for me to put together a build that focuses on status effects (unless your are in Infinite Archive, but this does nothing to make that build better or worse really).
I can understand if they had said they wanted to tone down the damage acquired by the Focused Efforts vision (but they didn't), or if they wanted to let more classes use focused efforts with the same effectiveness as the Warden and Dragon Knight, but if that is the case then buffing the proc chance of certain damage types for the classes would make a lot more sense (e.g. Sorc gets increase to apply shock, Nightblade gets increase to apply poison, Necromancer gets increase to apply disease, etc) than buffing the status effects themselves as this would also help to add distinct flavor to the classes.
Anyway, this isn't the first time they threw in unnecessary changes that were only halfway thought through (and likely won't follow through with), and it won't be the last.
Playing since beta...2 -
Faulgor✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Completely agree with giving each class its own status effect niche. They started off well with changes to DK and Warden way back when and then just stopped for some reason. The Arcanist passive that buffs status effects in general is also not a good look in this regard.
The idea to increase proc chance when the target is already afflicted by a certain status effect is also really elegant. It would make it easier to build the stacks for hemo for example, which will be really difficult now with the nerf to trap - but if abilities like trap with a guaranteed up-front proc just help you to get a foot in the door, it's kinda nice design.Alandrol Sul: He's making another Numidium?!?
Vivec: Worse, buddy. They're buying it.0