Hardened Ward heal making it to live is a mistake and needs to be changed

Bushido2513 · June 21

Joy_Division wrote: »

@Bushido2513

I met with ZOS in person. I talked to them while they were at an open bar event (and thus more loose with their tongue than they otherwise would be). I sat in their meetings when they were making game decisions.

They don;t give feedback, but they absolutely look at what their players tell them (through various means, not just these forums). People don;t think they take feedback in consideration because ZOS did not select their one specific suggestion among the thousands they receive. They also do not just look at profits. Morrowind and update 35 were wildly unpopular the moment their patch notes were released. They knew they'd lose subs and players, but they went through with these changes precisely because they believed those major alterations were needed for the long term health of the game at the time. I would agree they prioritize resources to stuff like art, making the PvE zones genuinely interesting, and stuff the more competitive players would rather see elsewhere. I sat in the same room with these people; I'm not just saying this.

ZOS often makes the balance decisions they do because I don't feel they have a keen grasp of what is generally known as min-maxing. Without getting into specifics, that was my biggest takeaway whenever we talked about balance. So when high level players make posts such as this, and ZOS can see the back and forth, the nitty gritty so to speak that debates such as this inspire, that is extremely valuable this sort of information is what ZOS needs to hear. While their understanding of min-maxing is less than ideal, they are fully aware of things like bias, subjectivity, and evidence.

So of course a subject like this isn't a simple one. I will say that I understand that in these situations that this was your observation and the account you walked away with and I get that.

That being said I've watched vids that are still public on youtube that also show accounts of multiple people felt they were dealt with negatively and disingenuously with by ZOS when it came to trying to have talks about how to make the game better.

These were well known players that had been playing the game for quite some time that were more than willing to sit down with ZOS to try to make this a better game that were treated let's just say not as well as you by their own account.

So like every company I'm sure there are good sides/people and bad sides/people, it's not usually a one size fits all and I wouldn't want to paint it that way. There are absolutely some amount of people in ZOS that care about the game and pvp player feedback to some detail. Whether those people speak up, get heard at meeting, have decision making authority, etc is another story.

At the end of the day I'm only guessing at their true motivations but as people have often said, xyz about the game can be broken for months but the crow store sees a rarity of downtime and always has new stock for sale. There's all these new zones and features for pve but pvp gets scraps. ZOS seems to have a target audience and for me it seems to be far and away from pvp other than in the most general sense.

master_vanargand · June 21

If ZoS cared about balance, there would be no Arcanist, Sorcerer, immortal ball groups, or vampire Undeath.
The fact that they exist means that ZoS either doesn't care about balance, or it did and the results were disastrous.

kurbbie_s · June 22

Joy_Division wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

it became clear which direction...

...which direction you were headed in. Just you. Other players still compete, and the devs still try to balance.

DrNukenstein wrote: »

In a game where you do not have to aim

But unlike range, melee attacks do need to be aimed, and have to deal with idiotic cast delays on top of aiming. MagSorc is the game's archetypal caster mage spec yet doesn't actually have to cast (or aim) anything unless you go full potato on your frags. The 2h melee warrior line has more cast time skills (3) than any magical caster line in the game.

Please tell me how other players in this game still compete in anything other than their feeling they are at this or that level?

This game has no accurate way for a player to gauge skill in PVP.

Devs of course do balance the game but if they keep balancing away from skill based gameplay as they have been then what does that really say for any given skill level people think they seem to achieve?

The way most games are and for most people, the only competition is how they feel. If I go down to the park to play basketball, there is no league, half the time there aren;t even structured rules, no entity is keeping track of the score to publish it in tomorrow's paper, the various skill level of the players is crazy wide, and ultimately the end result of the game will not matter in my real life one bit. In short, there is more attention paid to the informal pick up game than ZOS devotes to ESO, because the town will occasionally repair a bent rim and replace a net.

But you better believe when I am playing, I do care very much about winning. And so do most of the other players. I've witnessed people throwing tantrums, others literally taking their basketball home with them, and of course fights. All for a stupid game that has no bearing on our lives whatsoever. These atavistic feeling probably stem from hundreds of thousands of years of evolution in which Sapiens made it a point to outcompete their rivals in some ritualistic nonsense to mate, but those feelings are very much there for most people, even if some people are better at controlling them.

There many not be an accurate way for a player to gauge skill in PvP, but that certainly does not stop players from trying.

As someone who as long ago lost any faith that ZOS might make PvP even a semi-competitive format with real incentives to participate and win, I totally understand being far less serious about studying the game, grinding out sets, and just throwing together anything and playing the game. But even though I do that and accept if I lose to a player who is most invested in the game, that doesn't mean I am indifferent to balance. I have always been a better templar player than a sorcerer player and the reality is that right now I am conspicuously more effective on a sorcerer than a templar. Is this because Templar sucks or Sorcerer is overturned? Or is magicka sorcerer is so forgiving to play you have to actually try in order to be a potato? I haven't played enough in the past 4 years to make an informed judgment one way or the other.

So even though ZOS isn;t keeping score and isn;t even trying to make PvP skillful or properly competitive and I am more of a "casual" now, that doesn't mean I do not care and have become apathetic to such things. If I am going to choose to keep my guitar in the closet and instead devote a night to logging onto Cyrodiil, I do not want to feel like as if I went to the park and the town made an arbitrary rule that some players got three points for a layup or I had to play barefoot.

"These atavistic feeling probably stem from hundreds of thousands of years of evolution in which Sapiens made it a point to outcompete their rivals in some ritualistic nonsense to mate, but those feelings are very much there for most people, even if some people are better at controlling them."

No, men are competitive in nature. We like to compete and feel like w

StaticWave wrote: »

And for the people that think Merciless Resolve is better than Curse + Frag, I'm going to have to correct you here because that's just flat-out wrong. There are 3 things you need to remember:

1) Merciless Resolve hits like a truck AFTER receiving Incap debuff
2) Merciless Resolve is not a delayed burst
3) Merciless Resolve is 100% blockable

Due to these 3 reasons, the NB will have to spend 2 GCDs to setup its burst combo (Incap + Merciless Resolve), and make sure that they catch someone off-guard with Off-Balance to guarantee a hit.

In contrast, Sorc does NOT need to worry about this because:

1) Curse is unblockable, meaning nearly half of Sorc's burst is guaranteed to go through
2) Curse is a true delayed burst, meaning it can be combined with another skill in the same GCD to yield a bigger damage value

I went ahead and tested in game to prove my point. My test involved damage taken from a crit Merciless Resolve before AND after Incap debuff, and from a crit Frag + Curse combo. The NB had 26.5k HP with 140 Balorgh ult, and the magsorc had 32k HP with 51k max mag. My resistances are shown below:

And in case you don't believe that the NB had 26.5k HP and the magsorc had 32k HP, here are the screenshots of their HP:

NB:

Magsorc:

Let's look at the numbers for NB.

Here's Merciless Resolve before Incap:

Here's Merciless Resolve after Incap and 140 Balorgh:

Now let's look at the value for Curse + cFrag:

So before Incap, Merciless Resolve critted for 13.3k. After Incap and with 140 Balorgh, Merciless Resolve critted for 17k. Big numbers against a fairly built player like me. But wait, look at the magsorc instead. His Curse critted for 7.7k, and his cFrag critted for 9.6k. That's a 17.3k combined value in 1 GCD. Not amplified by a 140 Balorgh ult or 20% extra damage taken. Literally BASE value. Let's also mention the fact that the Sorc has 6k more HP than the NB.

You literally have to be debuffed by Incap to be taking anything more than 13k from Merciless Resolve. Without the debuff, you're not even matching the same potential as a single Curse + cFrag combo. This is not even mentioning the fact that I can hold block and shut down Merciless Resolve completely, whereas I will still be eating a 7.7k crit Curse through my block.

Assuming I have 60% block mitigation, a 13.3k crit Merciless Resolve will only deal 5.3k damage to me. With that same mitigation, I will take 7.7k damage from Curse, plus another 3.8k from cFrag, totalling 11.5k. More than twice the damage through block, and you're telling me it can only kill noobs? Please lol

you said all this but didn't mention the disparity in CP or allocations of CP. Make everything exactly the same and remember that NB can turn invisible canceling everything except my curse. by which you could run away before i found you.

Firstmep · June 22

I'll be honest, I'd like zos to just remove undeath for a patch, and then we can test all of this stuff out on an even playing field.
Ward is too strong atm imho, but without undeath, falling into execute range at least hurts a little bit, while warding up while having a casual 20-25% extra mitigation from the passive makes you feel absolutely immortal.
Also for anyone who desnt think ward is a problem, try playing sorc without it. Its night and day. And than you have you ask yourself the question if sorcs power level without ward is acceptable or not? I think it is, since the class has such easy mobility and high ranged damage built in, it is okay, to have some weaknesses. Even zos admitted that they're okay with classes having weak spots, like templar burdr damage.

StaticWave · June 22

kurbbie_s wrote: »

you said all this but didn't mention the disparity in CP or allocations of CP. Make everything exactly the same and remember that NB can turn invisible canceling everything except my curse. by which you could run away before i found you.

Both are in full CP damage. Besides, it wouldn't matter that much. Curse + cFrag are critting for 4k more damage than Merciless Resolve before Incap debuff and 140 ult Balorgh. Having 1 extra dmg CP isn't going to increase Merciless Resolve's damage by 4k.

Zabagad · June 22

Firstmep wrote: »

I'll be honest, I'd like zos to just remove undeath for a patch

Yes pls - just remove undeath and increase the population cap to the values from the test last year.

Joy_Division wrote: »

They don;t give feedback, but they absolutely look at what their players tell them (through various means, not just these forums). People don;t think they take feedback in consideration because ZOS did not select their one specific suggestion among the thousands they receive. They also do not just look at profits. Morrowind and update 35 were wildly unpopular the moment their patch notes were released. They knew they'd lose subs and players, but they went through with these changes precisely because they believed those major alterations were needed for the long term health of the game at the time. I would agree they prioritize resources to stuff like art, making the PvE zones genuinely interesting, and stuff the more competitive players would rather see elsewhere. I sat in the same room with these people; I'm not just saying this.

ZOS often makes the balance decisions they do because I don't feel they have a keen grasp of what is generally known as min-maxing. Without getting into specifics, that was my biggest takeaway whenever we talked about balance. So when high level players make posts such as this, and ZOS can see the back and forth, the nitty gritty so to speak that debates such as this inspire, that is extremely valuable this sort of information is what ZOS needs to hear. While their understanding of min-maxing is less than ideal, they are fully aware of things like bias, subjectivity, and evidence.

Interesting to hear, but I suspect that the way ZOS deals with eso has changed a lot since the end of the Class-Rep-Program.
How long ago was that meeting? 3 years...?
So are you confident to believe that the same is still the case....?
Because if so - why don't they do something (I don't care what specific proposal - just something!) for necros and against BGs and against undeath....?

Bushido2513 · June 22

Firstmep wrote: »

I'll be honest, I'd like zos to just remove undeath for a patch, and then we can test all of this stuff out on an even playing field.
Ward is too strong atm imho, but without undeath, falling into execute range at least hurts a little bit, while warding up while having a casual 20-25% extra mitigation from the passive makes you feel absolutely immortal.
Also for anyone who desnt think ward is a problem, try playing sorc without it. Its night and day. And than you have you ask yourself the question if sorcs power level without ward is acceptable or not? I think it is, since the class has such easy mobility and high ranged damage built in, it is okay, to have some weaknesses. Even zos admitted that they're okay with classes having weak spots, like templar burdr damage.

If you're playing ward right now and feel immortal it's probably going to be due to who and how you're fighting. Not saying the ward change isn't strong, just that immortal wouldn't be the word I'd use

xylena_lazarow · June 22

Bushido2513 wrote: »

If you're playing ward right now and feel immortal it's probably going to be due to who and how you're fighting. Not saying the ward change isn't strong, just that immortal wouldn't be the word I'd use

They said they feel immortal. Not that they literally can't die. Semantics are the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Bushido2513 · June 22

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

If you're playing ward right now and feel immortal it's probably going to be due to who and how you're fighting. Not saying the ward change isn't strong, just that immortal wouldn't be the word I'd use

They said they feel immortal. Not that they literally can't die. Semantics are the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Well you never know what audience you're talking to. When I see a video that says immortal build I think click bait and possibly hard to kill depending on skill level, enemies, etc. I'm thinking it through. Someone else might read that and take it at face value. This is why I said probably due to and not definitely due to. I'm just providing possible context where some seemed to be missing.

TechMaybeHic · June 22

Firstmep wrote: »

I'll be honest, I'd like zos to just remove undeath for a patch, and then we can test all of this stuff out on an even playing field.
Ward is too strong atm imho, but without undeath, falling into execute range at least hurts a little bit, while warding up while having a casual 20-25% extra mitigation from the passive makes you feel absolutely immortal.
Also for anyone who desnt think ward is a problem, try playing sorc without it. Its night and day. And than you have you ask yourself the question if sorcs power level without ward is acceptable or not? I think it is, since the class has such easy mobility and high ranged damage built in, it is okay, to have some weaknesses. Even zos admitted that they're okay with classes having weak spots, like templar burdr damage.

That very last bit is the frustrating part, though. People diminish sorc offensive kit because it can be avoided to minimize how good it is at range. They get 2 curse delays, and a random frag for burst. A templar, who is told they have so much healing, they don't want them to have damage; has 1 POTL allowed at any time, takes 6 seconds to fill which is nye impossible with maybe 70% of the population just streaking out of damage, stealthing out of damage, or just having basically 5 chances to netch it away.

Still; I will give way to the fact that there currently are 4 classes that are extreme outliers in balance. 3 at the high end, and 1 at the low end. It's really about where you thing the center target is for which way it needs to be adjusted; but the comment on Templars in the recent past says sorc ward need nerfed

xylena_lazarow · June 22

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

People diminish sorc offensive kit because it can be avoided to minimize how good it is at range.

This is an incredibly good point, as Sorc offense is indeed intended to be telegraphed and avoidable because of how inherently powerful max range attacks are. One should be able to see pretty clearly from all the instant ranged burst proc spam flying around right now that certain effects do NOT belong on ranged attackers. I'd have words on the terrible design of Curse if not for other more pressing problems with Sorcs and ranged damage in general.

DrNukenstein · June 22

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

You just don't get it, Nightblade! Wearing an RNG proc set is for no skill zerg trash, but slotting an RNG proc on your bar is high skill pro gaming. Only a Real MagSorc has a high enough IQ to understand. /s

This is a very good point. A 5 piece investment is not equivalent to a skill slot. I think Instant-Frag proc should be a passive, curse should be applied on crits (only outside of 20 meters to reward skilled gaming), and every 5 seconds your mag sorc light attack should automatically be a power overload. Then we will build flexibility on the hardest class in the game.

DrNukenstein · June 22

TBH they should just rework critical surge into rallying cry with a heal proc when you crit.

Chilly-McFreeze · June 22

[/quote]

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

People diminish sorc offensive kit because it can be avoided to minimize how good it is at range.

This is an incredibly good point, as Sorc offense is indeed intended to be telegraphed and avoidable because of how inherently powerful max range attacks are. One should be able to see pretty clearly from all the instant ranged burst proc spam flying around right now that certain effects do NOT belong on ranged attackers. I'd have words on the terrible design of Curse if not for other more pressing problems with Sorcs and ranged damage in general.

I can agree on that. I'm a beneficary of the ward buff and I love to play melee on sorc. Granted, I see myself as middle tier player at best but I'm still melting despite rallying cry, speed and shield, as soon as I'm caught out of position, which happens every now and then when you can't pew pew from max range. When I go ranged I can agree on Ward being busted on that combination. But in melee it's a different experience.

DrNukenstein · June 22

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

I can agree on that. I'm a beneficary of the ward buff and I love to play melee on sorc. Granted, I see myself as middle tier player at best but I'm still melting despite rallying cry, speed and shield, as soon as I'm caught out of position, which happens every now and then when you can't pew pew from max range. When I go ranged I can agree on Ward being busted on that combination. But in melee it's a different experience.

That's right! Changes like this are for the players like you!

DrNukenstein · June 22

On a serious note if we're going to criticize ward someone should bring up the bonkers customizable shields everyone can make now and how they fit with classes that traditionally don't use shielding. Warding Soul+Druid's feels pretty strong when it doesn't cast on your undeserving team mate.

StaticWave · June 22

Firstmep wrote: »

Also for anyone who desnt think ward is a problem, try playing sorc without it. Its night and day. And than you have you ask yourself the question if sorcs power level without ward is acceptable or not?

They won’t admit that. You see, ZOS has given Sorc not one, but 3 competitive burst heals in U42 (Healing Soul, Healing Contingency, and Vibrant Shroud), yet they still refuse to slot them.

You know why? I think I know why:

1) They know Ward is overpowered. After all, those 3 healing skills are similar to other classes’ burst heals, and other classes burst heals are weaker than Hardened Ward. Why would they downgrade, right?

2) Several magsorc mains have this deluded mindset that they HAVE to stack max mag in order to play the class. Literally every single class has adapted to hybridization at this point. Even with buffs to healing for Sorc in U41 and U42, magsorc mains still REFUSE to stack max spell damage.

So you have players that purposely restrict themselves to the old play style even after ZOS has given them the tools to diversify their build. Then they also refuse to admit that Ward is broken lol. Weird logic tbh.

StaticWave · June 22

Oh btw, magsorc is banned in an upcoming dueling tourney on PC NA. It’s too hard to balance the class without having major restrictions on it and putting people off from joining. Better to ban it outright than deal with the player complaints.

Bushido2513 · June 22

StaticWave wrote: »

Oh btw, magsorc is banned in an upcoming dueling tourney on PC NA. It’s too hard to balance the class without having major restrictions on it and putting people off from joining. Better to ban it outright than deal with the player complaints.

Yes the topic is ward but to be clear lots of things are banned in tournaments that also still need to be balanced. I say that to say that 1v1 balance in this game just isn't really there so yes saying sorcs playing ward are banned is something to note but it's definitely not the only outlier in 1v1.

StaticWave · June 23

StaticWave wrote: »

2) Several magsorc mains have this deluded mindset that they HAVE to stack max mag in order to play the class. Literally every single class has adapted to hybridization at this point. Even with buffs to healing for Sorc in U41 and U42, magsorc mains still REFUSE to stack max spell damage.

So you have players that purposely restrict themselves to the old play style even after ZOS has given them the tools to diversify their build. Then they also refuse to admit that Ward is broken lol. Weird logic tbh.

And to elaborate on this point, here is comparison between a standard Wardless stat build and a Ward build, both without CP activated:

Wardless stat build:

Ward build:

Both specs are literally in the same sets. The only 2 things I changed were putting on Ward for 1 build and dropping Ward for the other, and making the necessary stat adjustments. The empty slot in the Wardless build is for Healing Soul. Let's compare the stats, shall we?

Wardless build:
- 30k HP
- 22.8k max mag
- 16.8k max stam
- 2k mag regen
- 1.6k stam regen
- 6348 spell damage
- 35% spell crit
- 77% crit damage
- 67% crit healing
- 4.2k base pen
- 23.9k spell resist and 23.2k physical resist front bar
- 3762 crit resist
- Major Berserk and Major Vitality
- With 200 ult Balorgh, spell damage goes to 6.5k and base pen goes to 8.8k
- 9807 effective power without Balorgh, and 11017 effective power with 200 ult Balorgh

Ward build:
- 30.3k HP
- 44k max mag
- 26.4k max stam
- 1.6k mag regen
- 1.7k stam regen (because we're in 4 medium)
- 5155 spell damage
- 36% spell crit
- 79% crit damage
- 69% crit healing
- 23.9k spell resist and 22.4k phys resist front bar
- 3762 crit resist
- 5.1k base pen
- Overload instead of Undo
- 10118 effective power

Tooltip for Cfrag on Wardless build at 200 ult Balorgh:

Tooltip for Cfrag on Ward build:

The Wardless build also has a 40% self-snare, 21.2k less max mag, 9.6k less max stam, 1% less spell crit, 2% less crit damage, 2% less crit healing, no Overload sustain, and also no 12k shield. The only things this Wardless build has over Ward build are slightly higher tooltips AFTER 200 ult Balorgh, Major Vitality, more pen (which only lasts for 12s), 300 more mag recovery (which is negligible with Overload sustain), more spell damage (which doesn't matter because it has less max mag), and 1k more physical resist.

This is not even considering the fact that the Ward build can go full mag glyphs to maximize damage, while still being tanky because of Hardened Ward:

Now it has a higher Cfrag tooltip than the Wardless build nearly at all times instead of waiting for a 200 ult Balorgh that only lasts 12s.

I think we all know why they don't switch to max spell damage lol. There is literally no reason to downgrade when stacking max mag is superior in everyway.

StaticWave · June 23

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Oh btw, magsorc is banned in an upcoming dueling tourney on PC NA. It’s too hard to balance the class without having major restrictions on it and putting people off from joining. Better to ban it outright than deal with the player complaints.

Yes the topic is ward but to be clear lots of things are banned in tournaments that also still need to be balanced. I say that to say that 1v1 balance in this game just isn't really there so yes saying sorcs playing ward are banned is something to note but it's definitely not the only outlier in 1v1.

Yea but to outright ban an entire class says a lot about its strength lol. The only other class I've seen being banned completely was Templar when it was busted in 1v1 tourneys.

StaticWave · June 23

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Oh btw, magsorc is banned in an upcoming dueling tourney on PC NA. It’s too hard to balance the class without having major restrictions on it and putting people off from joining. Better to ban it outright than deal with the player complaints.

Yes the topic is ward but to be clear lots of things are banned in tournaments that also still need to be balanced. I say that to say that 1v1 balance in this game just isn't really there so yes saying sorcs playing ward are banned is something to note but it's definitely not the only outlier in 1v1.

Class Specific Bans for the upcoming PC NA dueling tourney:

Dragonknight:
-Wings
-Ash Cloud and morphs
-Shattering Rocks
-Shifting Standard

Nightblade:
-Shadow Cloak and morphs
-Consuming Darkness and morphs
-Critical Damage increases limited to 50%

Sorcerer:
Sorcerer class is not allowed for this tournament

Templar:
-Javelin may not be used with meteor on ranged spec
-Aurora Javelin
-Eclipse and morphs

Warden:
-Deceptive Predator
-Crystallized Shield and morphs
-Budding Seeds

Necromancer:
-Expunge and morphs

Arcanist:
-Rune of Uncanny Adoration
-Runic Defense and morphs
-Remedy Cascade and morphs
-Apocryphal Gate and morphs
-Gibbering Shield and morphs

Look at other class specific bans and then look at Sorc. Sorc is literally banned from the tournament because balancing it is impossible. You have to limit so many things for the class to actually be fair in a tournament.

StaticWave · June 23

StaticWave wrote: »

And for the people that think Merciless Resolve is better than Curse + Frag, I'm going to have to correct you here because that's just flat-out wrong. There are 3 things you need to remember:

1) Merciless Resolve hits like a truck AFTER receiving Incap debuff
2) Merciless Resolve is not a delayed burst
3) Merciless Resolve is 100% blockable

Due to these 3 reasons, the NB will have to spend 2 GCDs to setup its burst combo (Incap + Merciless Resolve), and make sure that they catch someone off-guard with Off-Balance to guarantee a hit.

In contrast, Sorc does NOT need to worry about this because:

1) Curse is unblockable, meaning nearly half of Sorc's burst is guaranteed to go through
2) Curse is a true delayed burst, meaning it can be combined with another skill in the same GCD to yield a bigger damage value

I went ahead and tested in game to prove my point. My test involved damage taken from a crit Merciless Resolve before AND after Incap debuff, and from a crit Frag + Curse combo. The NB had 26.5k HP with 140 Balorgh ult, and the magsorc had 32k HP with 51k max mag. My resistances are shown below:

And in case you don't believe that the NB had 26.5k HP and the magsorc had 32k HP, here are the screenshots of their HP:

NB:

Magsorc:

Let's look at the numbers for NB.

Here's Merciless Resolve before Incap:

Here's Merciless Resolve after Incap and 140 Balorgh:

Now let's look at the value for Curse + cFrag:

So before Incap, Merciless Resolve critted for 13.3k. After Incap and with 140 Balorgh, Merciless Resolve critted for 17k. Big numbers against a fairly built player like me. But wait, look at the magsorc instead. His Curse critted for 7.7k, and his cFrag critted for 9.6k. That's a 17.3k combined value in 1 GCD. Not amplified by a 140 Balorgh ult or 20% extra damage taken. Literally BASE value. Let's also mention the fact that the Sorc has 6k more HP than the NB.

You literally have to be debuffed by Incap to be taking anything more than 13k from Merciless Resolve. Without the debuff, you're not even matching the same potential as a single Curse + cFrag combo. This is not even mentioning the fact that I can hold block and shut down Merciless Resolve completely, whereas I will still be eating a 7.7k crit Curse through my block.

Assuming I have 60% block mitigation, a 13.3k crit Merciless Resolve will only deal 5.3k damage to me. With that same mitigation, I will take 7.7k damage from Curse, plus another 3.8k from cFrag, totalling 11.5k. More than twice the damage through block, and you're telling me it can only kill noobs? Please lol

In game example of this combo being better than Merciless Resolve in a real 1v1 in IC:

Blocked the cFrag and took 4745 dmg, meaning if I didn't block it would've hit for 10k+. Curse hits for 7.6k crit through block. Even with blocking, I still took 12.3k dmg through block because Curse is unblockable. If it was a Merciless Resolve, I would've taken at best 7k damage.

Another example:

10k total burst damage despite blocking the cFrag.

It doesn't matter whether it's predictable or not if you can't counter it fully. Same reason why Meteor + Javelin Templar is so predictable yet it's almost impossible to counter.

Bushido2513 · June 23

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Oh btw, magsorc is banned in an upcoming dueling tourney on PC NA. It’s too hard to balance the class without having major restrictions on it and putting people off from joining. Better to ban it outright than deal with the player complaints.

Yes the topic is ward but to be clear lots of things are banned in tournaments that also still need to be balanced. I say that to say that 1v1 balance in this game just isn't really there so yes saying sorcs playing ward are banned is something to note but it's definitely not the only outlier in 1v1.

Class Specific Bans for the upcoming PC NA dueling tourney:

Dragonknight:
-Wings
-Ash Cloud and morphs
-Shattering Rocks
-Shifting Standard

Nightblade:
-Shadow Cloak and morphs
-Consuming Darkness and morphs
-Critical Damage increases limited to 50%

Sorcerer:
Sorcerer class is not allowed for this tournament

Templar:
-Javelin may not be used with meteor on ranged spec
-Aurora Javelin
-Eclipse and morphs

Warden:
-Deceptive Predator
-Crystallized Shield and morphs
-Budding Seeds

Necromancer:
-Expunge and morphs

Arcanist:
-Rune of Uncanny Adoration
-Runic Defense and morphs
-Remedy Cascade and morphs
-Apocryphal Gate and morphs
-Gibbering Shield and morphs

Look at other class specific bans and then look at Sorc. Sorc is literally banned from the tournament because balancing it is impossible. You have to limit so many things for the class to actually be fair in a tournament.

Well it's also interesting to note that the list looks to prevent stalemates and at least one kill combo.

Not sure why stam sorc no ward couldn't have been left on the list or just sorc in general with no ward?

Would have been interesting to see the results where ward was allowed but I'm thinking it would be more stalemates than sorc wins which is still an important distinction.

xylena_lazarow · June 23

StaticWave wrote: »

Yea but to outright ban an entire class says a lot about its strength lol. The only other class I've seen being banned completely was Templar when it was busted in 1v1 tourneys.

Wasn't some iteration of early Necro banned too, when it still had all those crazy 30% buffs?

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Would have been interesting to see the results where ward was allowed but I'm thinking it would be more stalemates than sorc wins which is still an important distinction.

Not really, you already know. In competitive gaming, there needs to be room to outplay in a match between two strong players who don't make mistakes, which is why they're banning all the overpowered stalemate skills. When all you can do is wait for the opponent to make a defensive mistake, that's trash PvP with a low skill ceiling. Boring to watch too.

Bushido2513 · June 23

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Yea but to outright ban an entire class says a lot about its strength lol. The only other class I've seen being banned completely was Templar when it was busted in 1v1 tourneys.

Wasn't some iteration of early Necro banned too, when it still had all those crazy 30% buffs?

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Would have been interesting to see the results where ward was allowed but I'm thinking it would be more stalemates than sorc wins which is still an important distinction.

Not really, you already know. In competitive gaming, there needs to be room to outplay in a match between two strong players who don't make mistakes, which is why they're banning all the overpowered stalemate skills. When all you can do is wait for the opponent to make a defensive mistake, that's trash PvP with a low skill ceiling. Boring to watch too.

I would agree that sounds pretty boring to watch. I was just curious to see how much offensive ability this setup would allow sorcs when tested against many different players and classes. But yes if it only allowed stalemates then that would get old quickly but it would also show that a sorc isn't operating with a strong defense that can't be penetrated as well as an offense that can't be defended against.

I dealt with more 1v1 duels than tournaments so nothing was ever restricted and I eventually just backed away as 1v1 balance got worse and worse. So perhaps my not seeing it as much of a gauge for things comes from seeing how flawed ZOS has allowed it to become over time. I honestly feel bad for anyone trying to really enjoy dueling these days. For every decent match you get x more others where someone is using the most advantageous setup they could find.

This is where I appreciate that gvg at least helps to blend in the issues overall a bit. I wish those standards they were trying to implement had paid off a bit more.

xylena_lazarow · June 23

Bushido2513 wrote: »

This is where I appreciate that gvg at least helps to blend in the issues overall a bit. I wish those standards they were trying to implement had paid off a bit more.

If you've ever played a high mmr bgs match against teams with dedicated healers... LOL no it makes the stalemate problem even worse. GvG would need all the same rules and then some.

Bushido2513 · June 23

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

This is where I appreciate that gvg at least helps to blend in the issues overall a bit. I wish those standards they were trying to implement had paid off a bit more.

If you've ever played a high mmr bgs match against teams with dedicated healers... LOL no it makes the stalemate problem even worse. GvG would need all the same rules and then some.

I have played those situations from both sides.

Bgs is a little different though because when you can team up and go against a predictable scenario you're moving away from some of the randomness of open world. You only have to worry about some specific scenarios and so it makes it pretty easy as a team to create an outright win or stalemate. This can work for and against a player so you just kind of have to accept that it's instant action but with a dice roll.

Open world is where I'd say gvg has the most ability to create situations where you can eventually turn the tide or at least have options and enjoy some combat in a group regardless of skill and build level.

DrNukenstein · June 24

Lol. It's true. No one likes playing with or against the twitchy sorc egos.

xylena_lazarow · June 24

Bushido2513 wrote: »

I have played those situations from both sides

Cool, wanna share? The rest of your post had words but didn't describe the experience, for example how did you find it when your group had to focus down a single opposing MagSorc?

DrNukenstein wrote: »

Lol. It's true. No one likes playing with or against the twitchy sorc egos.

You nailed it with that "haha your class is easy now" line. They've always taken pride in piloting a difficult class, which suddenly got dumbed down to a one button faceroll. Poor MagSorcs.