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

Bushido2513 · June 24

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

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.

Focusing a magsorc was easy for me when I played with a group that was communicating, had good build, and a good level of skill. Damage windows and timing had to be correct but I do recall it being interestingly enough easier than say an Arcanist but maybe I just am more familiar and so it seems easier to me since I've never played Arcanist.

I will say though if a sorc commits to the run you can just let that go unless the whole team runs them down but that's a lot of builds and classes

xylena_lazarow · June 24

Bushido2513 wrote: »

I've never played Arcanist

Please do.

Bushido2513 · June 24

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

I've never played Arcanist

Please do.

Only if it becomes free or free to me but I'm not interested in paying for it.

xylena_lazarow · June 24

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Only if it becomes free or free to me but I'm not interested in paying for it.

Fair enough, so until then, please trust actual Arc players and stop assuming it's anything like Sorc. It's not.

Bushido2513 · June 24

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Only if it becomes free or free to me but I'm not interested in paying for it.

Fair enough, so until then, please trust actual Arc players and stop assuming it's anything like Sorc. It's not.

Wasn't assuming anything I was relating my experience fighting arcs vs fighting sorcs. For me it's easier to kills sorcs than arcs but like I said it may just be that I'm more familiar with sorc and arcs are just tanky by nature

Joy_Division · June 24

Zabagad wrote: »

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....?

4 years for me. At least.

If I had to guess, yes, it's still the case. Most of the people that I met with are still there and ZOS's overall philosophy, target audience, attention to PvP, and habit for balance/update (using sets mainly while keeping abilities to a standardized formula) is more or less similar.

I also was in a sweaty PvE guild way back in 2014 and during those days, the devs actually occasionally hopped into Teamspeak (yes that long ago). I got a sense of the ZOS way then too. Back then, they certainly showed a lot more interest in feedback from what we might call high tier players, though they long, long ago stopped that practice. My guess is that they have come to the conclusion they can get most of the same info as it's basically all over numerous social media platforms, and they are probably correct in that. Their current practice has basically been unchanged for quite a while, which I would roughly boil down as (speaking strictly from a combat balance perspective):

Release patch
Identify problems (from feedback, data, meetings, etc).
Have some overall vision for a patch as selling/marketing goal (To use the Morrowind example, this was "back to making resource sustain matter." Another vision was standardized skills, every skill doing some function needs to be exactly in-line with every other skill that does that function). These are non-negotiable and they will never deviate from it
Come up with goal for patch x which will deal with 2 or maybe 3 problems that roughly corresponds to vision knowing full well other problems exist, which they will get to in later patches y, z, etc.
Internally, test out potential solutions with those 2 or 3 problems and keep the whole thing a secret. Here they do look at some of the feedback options that were fished out in step #2. But their vision always > anything else (even if they know they will lose players in the short term)
Use PTS as damage control for most egregious miscalculations from step #5.
Wait maybe 2 patches to see if other PTS complaints were right.
Rinse, repeat.

I think most people who pay attention to ZOS's gameplay updates are already well aware this is their pattern.

To your question about necros and vamps (I don;t know what you mean by BGs [Battlegrounds? If so, there is no dedicated PvP developer since late 2018, so all you're going to get are things like weekend events)], they fall into the category of other known issues that got put off for future patches. They are only laser focused on a few combat themes per update, so this stuff just gets put off. Most people don;t know this because ZOS doesn't communicate, giving off the incorrect impression of being unaware or indifferent. This was one of the things I realized when I sat in those rooms. They know. They are aware. It's just how they roll: if you're not a theme, you'll only get a tweak or so here and there (for ex, Necro got a buff to some tether skills). Eventually Vamp will get changed so it's not mandatory for competitive PvP. Eventually.

This model is especially painful when ZOS misses. Necros were a big theme a few updates ago (I forget which one, when they made Blastbones change), and, well, they got to wait their turn to come up for reform again. It's also painful when we know something is busted like the Undeath passive, but have to play through patch after the patch just dealing with it.

I think if given truth serum, ZOS would admit their model is not efficient. One big impression I came away from my visit was that ZOS has a lot of ideas and things they really would like to put into the game but just can't because there's too much other stuff to do. Their combat team is not very large for how big the game is, so only so much can get into an update. The rest has got to wait. The reality is the game is a lot healthier now when it was back in 2014-2015 when so much of their energies was on combat balancing (like for real, check out those old patch notes: every class had huge changes, and every week the PTS had major updates), so for those of us who would prefer more focus on combat, that's not likely to change.

DrNukenstein · June 24

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

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.

It was only a difficult class if you thought you could just stand there and free cast, but now you can.

xylena_lazarow · June 24

Joy_Division wrote: »

This model is especially painful when ZOS misses.

Like with Ward, their model now is to "let it bake" to see if the meta adapts to it, then if people still complain, then maybe they put it on their to-do list, at some point the combat team has to sit down and figure out how to adjust it, no they are not gonna read some forum goob's post of "just turn it into a HoT, bro" and suddenly it's case closed.

StaticWave · June 25

I'm running Healing Contingency with Ward at 40k HP and getting Major Vitality from Wield Soul spammable. Absolutely bonkers how much survivability I have. Look at this:

Without the Ward Contingency wouldn't be as effective, but having a 12k Ward + 6k crit burt heal + 11k Contingency heal makes you borderline immortal unless you're severely outnumbered lol. I'm convinced I could drop Vigor on this and still be just as tanky.

Zabagad · June 25

Joy_Division wrote: »

[...]
To your question about necros and vamps (I don;t know what you mean by BGs [Battlegrounds? If so, there is no dedicated PvP developer since late 2018[...]

I agree and/or accept your assessment to all because it fits my own impression - but with your insides its even stronger and say ty for you answer

I meant BG as ballgroup, but yes - my fault - as abbreviations are a problem for me too - like DC which has at least 3 different meenings

With your informations I think that the chance that they try to fix this problem is lower then low, because I see no quick solution for the ballgroup problem. To solve that, they need at least one dev for a longer time just for PvP.

But it's just sad, that they don't even care about the bigger, crystal clear and easy to fix PvP problems.
At least they could try any kind of a fix for undeath and give necro some real buff (in PvP).
I mean - the data I get for the population is significant and should be easy for them to get on their own. (3-4% necros in Cyro)
So if they only invest 1% of their time for PvP, they should see that problems and find a solution which could be done in a few days - even including the tests and observation and maybe corrections.

And if it is not a cost or strategy issue, they could raise the pop cap towards the test values - as you pointed out in your excellent thread...

And btt - based on your balance 8-step pattern I hope that they change in U43-U44 ward to a HoT - but if they don't do anything I'm fine too

Galeriano2 · June 26

StaticWave wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

If You would made that pit You would've to also decide which type of ranged magblade it will be. For a magsorc it would be just a magsorc. Nighhtblade flexibility in terms of build options gives him massive edge. Also I find it hilarious that Your only defense of nightblade is that I compared it just to a magsorc and You never made an actuall response to points that I've made about adventages that specific nb setups have over the magsorc. Just goes to show that deep down You perfectly know the position that magsorc is in currently.

Sorc is not outperforming nb for solo PvP.

I gave you 5 reasons why Sorc is as efficient as NB. I don't care about your skewed comparison using 1 specific spec of Sorc against the entire NB class. You can have those points unaddressed lol.

For stat ranged magblade, there are max spell damage + Healthy Offering or max magicka + Dampen Ward. For proc magblade, it would be a combination of proc sets + max spell damage + Healthy Offering. Those are the 3 types of ranged magblades you will see. I can guarantee you a mag stacking Sorc will destroy all 3 versions of ranged magblade. It has been the case for years.

And I gave You 5 answers as to why Your reasons were wrong. Like You brought a overload gank playstyle that nobody is even using anymore and last time it was effective few years ago as Your argumentation that sorc is equally effective at ganking as nb. Fact that You gave Your 5 reasons doesn't suddenly make them all valid points. All Your reasons had major flaws in the argumentation but of course when I pointed those flaws You decided to pretty much ignore all of that and instead focus mainly on the fact that I compared a magsorc to whole nb class as Your escape goat argument which doesn't even change much which I also explained why.

Lol okay i'll address your points.

Galeriano2 wrote: »

1. Overload ganking. Non existant on sorc anymore. When was the last time You've actually have seen overload ganker or any type of sorc ganker vs when was the last time You've seen a nb ganker? And even if overload ganking would be still existant in some form it's still a one trick pony that You can only use once in a while that requires better preparation and awerness of surroundings because there won't be vanishing into stealth after that if You fail.

Sorc can still gank on bow builds. You just have to make a couple adjustments.

Galeriano2 wrote: »

2. Proc abuse. Like I said not a magsorc thing. And if stamsorc was one of the biggest proc sets abusers in game's history than stamblade was and still is the biggest one. Stamsorc is known for becoming stronger every patch he can use some proc sets, nightblade is known for being the best class to use proc sets. Stamsorc just copy patses the meta proc sets from other classes and makes them stronger, nightblade does the same but he can also wear the proc set combos that no other class could utilize in the same manner as nb can. If You're so fond of old times to bring up overload ganking maybe You also remember the most broken proc set combo in history which was viper+widowmaker+tremorscale and which class was wearing it? Thing with abusing procs is that to go full proctard You need to have a skill that will offset investments You've made into going full proc and allow YOu to get full adventage of procs and cloak was always better at it than streak.

Again, you are using 1 spec of the class to compare to the entire NB class. Not a fair comparison and won't be addressed by me.

Galeriano2 wrote: »

3. Front loaded damage. In terms of magsorc it all goes back to what I said in one of my earlier comments. Great for killing noobs not so great against any decent player. Difference between magsorc'burst and nightblad eburst is that nb can burst someone way easier than sorc can because nb doesn't even need a combo or timing up anything to reach higher burst values than a sorc with perfectly timed combo that actually landed on someone.

The drawback is NB's burst is extremely predictable and can be completely countered by blocking. Sorc's combo cannot be 100% countered due to Curse being unblockable and requiring a cleanse, which not many classes have access to.

In this regard, Sorc actually is more efficient at bursting down decent players as a part of its kit is unblockable, whereas NB is better at killing noobs.

Galeriano2 wrote: »

4. Bombard spam. I said "from the things I described what are the things that You think magsorc can do with equall efficieny as nb", I don't remember saying anything about bombard or AoE control so I don't know what that argument is doing here.

Magsorc with Shattering Spines is exceptionally good as a crowd control class. I am currently using that on my support/off heal magsorc in a 4-man group. NB cannot match Sorc in this regard, hence Sorc is more efficient.

Galeriano2 wrote: »

5. Unmatched kiting potential. Sorc and nb are both kings in kiting in their own respective fields. While sorc is a master of just streaking away whcihc gives him an edge in open field nb is a master of LoS in closed spaces and elevations. The moment nb reaches some obstacle or elevation he instantly becomes better at kiting than sorc especially magsorc.

Right, each class has its strengths. Sorc is better at surviving in open field, and NB is better at surviving around LoS. Depending on the PvP content you play, either class can be better than the other. Neither are worst at both roles. For that reason, I give them equal efficiency.

1.Everyone can gank with bow. Overload gank You were reffering to ended long time ago, don't switch topics just because this one failed. Going by Your logic everyone can shieldspam and streak away because abilities mimicing sorc playstyle are in the game. It doesn't mean everyone will be as affective as sorc with it, same as it doesn't mean sorc bow gankers are efefctive which is a reason that playstyle is barely noticable in PvP contrary to nb bow gankers.

2.Again I explained why. Fact You fail to understand what I said 3 times already is not my concern. And as I said You can make all of the setups I mentioned on a magblade so Your line of defense failed.

3. Sorc burst combo is more predictable and harder to land since it's a 2 parter where 1 part is literally saying to the enemy "get ready I will attempt to burst You in 3,2,1". Fact that nb can burst people without creating a combo with an element of suprise is a massive adventage in general PvP.

4. You really did not understand what I wrote. Please read it few more times. if You will still not understand just skip it.It's getting tiresome to guide You through series of comments and explaining them one after another just so You can understand what was being said with a big chance You will still not understand it at the end.

Galeriano2 · June 26

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

Well who would've though that 2 burst abilities combined perfectly into a 1GCD combo can yield more dmagae than 1 burst ability just fired off randomly. Yes curse is unblockable, it kinda has to be to compensate a drawback of being a dead giveaway when the burst attempt will happen. Fact that You need to compare 2 burst abiliites combined perfectly into a combo where both are dealing crit dmg to a 1 burst ability to even try to diminish that second ability just shows how strong that one ability is.

Like always Your math is missing few important informations. You make it to look like this 13-17k merciless have equall chance to accur to sorc's 17k burst combo which is not the case. In both cases You've used crit values but since sorc's combo is a 2 parter it will have lower chance for 2 abilities to crit together in the same combo. For example let's assume sorc have 35% crit chance and nb have 40% crit chance which are pretty standard PvP values for both classes. Since sorc combo is a 2 parter it will have 12% chance to get both critical hits (0,35*0,35) when nb burst with mecriless will have a 40% chance to happen at base and 100% chance to occur if used after cloak. That is a noticable difference in real burst poitential. Overall nb will have more effective burst attempts than sorc. Also since incap have a 0,5 sec cast time it's basically like having ability with 0,5 sec delay which actually allows to perform incap+merciless within 1GCD time window and that 2 parter is hitting way harder than sorc's 2 parter. Nb can also use cloak before incap giving incap a guaratnteed crit and giving his incap+merciless combo 40% chance to deal critical dmg which is over 3x more chance than sorc have. Once again You're making a massive mistake of thinking that whole PvP resolves around duels.

Also what do You mean by "nb has to spend 2 GCDs to set up his burst combo" ? Sorc's curse+frag also require 2 GCDs to be set up and due to curse's nature whole combo requires 3-4 GCDs to have a chance to happen. It's not like activating curse automatically will fire frag 3,5 sec later. And when You say "You literally have to be debuffed by Incap to be taking anything more than 13k from Merciless Resolve" that is not a universal truth. The amount of dmg different players on different playstyles will take will vary.

Joy_Division · June 26

Zabagad wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

[...]
To your question about necros and vamps (I don;t know what you mean by BGs [Battlegrounds? If so, there is no dedicated PvP developer since late 2018[...]

I agree and/or accept your assessment to all because it fits my own impression - but with your insides its even stronger and say ty for you answer

I meant BG as ballgroup, but yes - my fault - as abbreviations are a problem for me too - like DC which has at least 3 different meenings
With your informations I think that the chance that they try to fix this problem is lower then low, because I see no quick solution for the ballgroup problem. To solve that, they need at least one dev for a longer time just for PvP.

But it's just sad, that they don't even care about the bigger, crystal clear and easy to fix PvP problems.
At least they could try any kind of a fix for undeath and give necro some real buff (in PvP).
I mean - the data I get for the population is significant and should be easy for them to get on their own. (3-4% necros in Cyro)
So if they only invest 1% of their time for PvP, they should see that problems and find a solution which could be done in a few days - even including the tests and observation and maybe corrections.

And if it is not a cost or strategy issue, they could raise the pop cap towards the test values - as you pointed out in your excellent thread...

And btt - based on your balance 8-step pattern I hope that they change in U43-U44 ward to a HoT - but if they don't do anything I'm fine too

I hear you.

ESO is a far healthier and more stable game than it once was. ZOS is in a position not to overburden their combat team, yet they do. They also seem not to have considered that incremental adjustments to a known issue in update 43 might help them make for a better, cleaner update 44.

I don't think the devs appreciate the potential goldmine they have in Cyrodiil. It was *packed* when the game was a buggy mess that lacked just about all the quality of life improvements since added and the balance was legit terrible (e.g., DK's dropping one banner after another). There isn;t anything quite like it. I know so many players who used to be strictly PvE, but eventually became regulars. If Cyrodiil were remotely inviting to ordinary players, they would participate some nights. But a big map with few players doesn't work and only the devoted will put up with the neglect. So here we are.

There's a clip floating around of an interview or something like that with Rich Lambert saying he'd work on PvP, but "anytime we add *** to PvP, performance suffers" or something like that. I basically took this as an admission that they've all but given up on PvP: telling us the desire is there, but the willpower to devote the time and resources is not. This leaves us with the unfortunate situation that ZOS knows issues exist and have the desire to do something, but think they are a indie studio and have already convinced themselves that their business model can't be changed. It is really quite baffling how they let outstanding issues that everyone agrees is busted just exist update after update after update.

StaticWave · June 27

Galeriano2 wrote: »

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

Well who would've though that 2 burst abilities combined perfectly into a 1GCD combo can yield more dmagae than 1 burst ability just fired off randomly. Yes curse is unblockable, it kinda has to be to compensate a drawback of being a dead giveaway when the burst attempt will happen. Fact that You need to compare 2 burst abiliites combined perfectly into a combo where both are dealing crit dmg to a 1 burst ability to even try to diminish that second ability just shows how strong that one ability is.

Like always Your math is missing few important informations. You make it to look like this 13-17k merciless have equall chance to accur to sorc's 17k burst combo which is not the case. In both cases You've used crit values but since sorc's combo is a 2 parter it will have lower chance for 2 abilities to crit together in the same combo. For example let's assume sorc have 35% crit chance and nb have 40% crit chance which are pretty standard PvP values for both classes. Since sorc combo is a 2 parter it will have 12% chance to get both critical hits (0,35*0,35) when nb burst with mecriless will have a 40% chance to happen at base and 100% chance to occur if used after cloak. That is a noticable difference in real burst poitential. Overall nb will have more effective burst attempts than sorc. Also since incap have a 0,5 sec cast time it's basically like having ability with 0,5 sec delay which actually allows to perform incap+merciless within 1GCD time window and that 2 parter is hitting way harder than sorc's 2 parter. Nb can also use cloak before incap giving incap a guaratnteed crit and giving his incap+merciless combo 40% chance to deal critical dmg which is over 3x more chance than sorc have. Once again You're making a massive mistake of thinking that whole PvP resolves around duels.

Also what do You mean by "nb has to spend 2 GCDs to set up his burst combo" ? Sorc's curse+frag also require 2 GCDs to be set up and due to curse's nature whole combo requires 3-4 GCDs to have a chance to happen. It's not like activating curse automatically will fire frag 3,5 sec later. And when You say "You literally have to be debuffed by Incap to be taking anything more than 13k from Merciless Resolve" that is not a universal truth. The amount of dmg different players on different playstyles will take will vary.

No, my math isn’t missing anything lol. Most magsorcs are sitting at around 65-75% crit dmg. I have 3.7k crit resist, or 55% crit damage mitigation.

I took 7.7k Curse and 9.6k frag, meaning the non crit values would be dealing 10-20% less damage. That’s a 6.1k - 6.9k Curse and 7.6k - 8.6k cFrag. That’s still a 13.7k - 15.5k combo, which is higher than Merciless Resolve’s crit value before Balorgh and Incap debuff lol.

Sorc’s combo is always going to be more lethal against a good player than NB’s combo simply
because half of it is unblockable/undodgable. I’ve already demonstrated that in another comment.

Galeriano2 · June 27

StaticWave wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

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

Well who would've though that 2 burst abilities combined perfectly into a 1GCD combo can yield more dmagae than 1 burst ability just fired off randomly. Yes curse is unblockable, it kinda has to be to compensate a drawback of being a dead giveaway when the burst attempt will happen. Fact that You need to compare 2 burst abiliites combined perfectly into a combo where both are dealing crit dmg to a 1 burst ability to even try to diminish that second ability just shows how strong that one ability is.

Like always Your math is missing few important informations. You make it to look like this 13-17k merciless have equall chance to accur to sorc's 17k burst combo which is not the case. In both cases You've used crit values but since sorc's combo is a 2 parter it will have lower chance for 2 abilities to crit together in the same combo. For example let's assume sorc have 35% crit chance and nb have 40% crit chance which are pretty standard PvP values for both classes. Since sorc combo is a 2 parter it will have 12% chance to get both critical hits (0,35*0,35) when nb burst with mecriless will have a 40% chance to happen at base and 100% chance to occur if used after cloak. That is a noticable difference in real burst poitential. Overall nb will have more effective burst attempts than sorc. Also since incap have a 0,5 sec cast time it's basically like having ability with 0,5 sec delay which actually allows to perform incap+merciless within 1GCD time window and that 2 parter is hitting way harder than sorc's 2 parter. Nb can also use cloak before incap giving incap a guaratnteed crit and giving his incap+merciless combo 40% chance to deal critical dmg which is over 3x more chance than sorc have. Once again You're making a massive mistake of thinking that whole PvP resolves around duels.

Also what do You mean by "nb has to spend 2 GCDs to set up his burst combo" ? Sorc's curse+frag also require 2 GCDs to be set up and due to curse's nature whole combo requires 3-4 GCDs to have a chance to happen. It's not like activating curse automatically will fire frag 3,5 sec later. And when You say "You literally have to be debuffed by Incap to be taking anything more than 13k from Merciless Resolve" that is not a universal truth. The amount of dmg different players on different playstyles will take will vary.

No, my math isn’t missing anything lol. Most magsorcs are sitting at around 65-75% crit dmg. I have 3.7k crit resist, or 55% crit damage mitigation.

I took 7.7k Curse and 9.6k frag, meaning the non crit values would be dealing 10-20% less damage. That’s a 6.1k - 6.9k Curse and 7.6k - 8.6k cFrag. That’s still a 13.7k - 15.5k combo, which is higher than Merciless Resolve’s crit value before Balorgh and Incap debuff lol.

Sorc’s combo is always going to be more lethal against a good player than NB’s combo simply
because half of it is unblockable/undodgable. I’ve already demonstrated that in another comment.

I was talking about crit chance not crit dmg. Once again You did not understood what i wrote yet You decided to respond. it's getting tiresome.

StaticWave · June 27

Galeriano2 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

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

Well who would've though that 2 burst abilities combined perfectly into a 1GCD combo can yield more dmagae than 1 burst ability just fired off randomly. Yes curse is unblockable, it kinda has to be to compensate a drawback of being a dead giveaway when the burst attempt will happen. Fact that You need to compare 2 burst abiliites combined perfectly into a combo where both are dealing crit dmg to a 1 burst ability to even try to diminish that second ability just shows how strong that one ability is.

Like always Your math is missing few important informations. You make it to look like this 13-17k merciless have equall chance to accur to sorc's 17k burst combo which is not the case. In both cases You've used crit values but since sorc's combo is a 2 parter it will have lower chance for 2 abilities to crit together in the same combo. For example let's assume sorc have 35% crit chance and nb have 40% crit chance which are pretty standard PvP values for both classes. Since sorc combo is a 2 parter it will have 12% chance to get both critical hits (0,35*0,35) when nb burst with mecriless will have a 40% chance to happen at base and 100% chance to occur if used after cloak. That is a noticable difference in real burst poitential. Overall nb will have more effective burst attempts than sorc. Also since incap have a 0,5 sec cast time it's basically like having ability with 0,5 sec delay which actually allows to perform incap+merciless within 1GCD time window and that 2 parter is hitting way harder than sorc's 2 parter. Nb can also use cloak before incap giving incap a guaratnteed crit and giving his incap+merciless combo 40% chance to deal critical dmg which is over 3x more chance than sorc have. Once again You're making a massive mistake of thinking that whole PvP resolves around duels.

Also what do You mean by "nb has to spend 2 GCDs to set up his burst combo" ? Sorc's curse+frag also require 2 GCDs to be set up and due to curse's nature whole combo requires 3-4 GCDs to have a chance to happen. It's not like activating curse automatically will fire frag 3,5 sec later. And when You say "You literally have to be debuffed by Incap to be taking anything more than 13k from Merciless Resolve" that is not a universal truth. The amount of dmg different players on different playstyles will take will vary.

No, my math isn’t missing anything lol. Most magsorcs are sitting at around 65-75% crit dmg. I have 3.7k crit resist, or 55% crit damage mitigation.

I took 7.7k Curse and 9.6k frag, meaning the non crit values would be dealing 10-20% less damage. That’s a 6.1k - 6.9k Curse and 7.6k - 8.6k cFrag. That’s still a 13.7k - 15.5k combo, which is higher than Merciless Resolve’s crit value before Balorgh and Incap debuff lol.

Sorc’s combo is always going to be more lethal against a good player than NB’s combo simply
because half of it is unblockable/undodgable. I’ve already demonstrated that in another comment.

I was talking about crit chance not crit dmg. Once again You did not understood what i wrote yet You decided to respond. it's getting tiresome.

And I said it doesn't matter because even if the Sorc doesn't crit anything, the entire combo still does 13.7-15.5k NON CRIT, which is higher than a CRIT Merciless Resolve before Balorgh + Incap. It's not me that don't understand, it's you lol.

Galeriano2 · June 27

StaticWave wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

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

Well who would've though that 2 burst abilities combined perfectly into a 1GCD combo can yield more dmagae than 1 burst ability just fired off randomly. Yes curse is unblockable, it kinda has to be to compensate a drawback of being a dead giveaway when the burst attempt will happen. Fact that You need to compare 2 burst abiliites combined perfectly into a combo where both are dealing crit dmg to a 1 burst ability to even try to diminish that second ability just shows how strong that one ability is.

Like always Your math is missing few important informations. You make it to look like this 13-17k merciless have equall chance to accur to sorc's 17k burst combo which is not the case. In both cases You've used crit values but since sorc's combo is a 2 parter it will have lower chance for 2 abilities to crit together in the same combo. For example let's assume sorc have 35% crit chance and nb have 40% crit chance which are pretty standard PvP values for both classes. Since sorc combo is a 2 parter it will have 12% chance to get both critical hits (0,35*0,35) when nb burst with mecriless will have a 40% chance to happen at base and 100% chance to occur if used after cloak. That is a noticable difference in real burst poitential. Overall nb will have more effective burst attempts than sorc. Also since incap have a 0,5 sec cast time it's basically like having ability with 0,5 sec delay which actually allows to perform incap+merciless within 1GCD time window and that 2 parter is hitting way harder than sorc's 2 parter. Nb can also use cloak before incap giving incap a guaratnteed crit and giving his incap+merciless combo 40% chance to deal critical dmg which is over 3x more chance than sorc have. Once again You're making a massive mistake of thinking that whole PvP resolves around duels.

Also what do You mean by "nb has to spend 2 GCDs to set up his burst combo" ? Sorc's curse+frag also require 2 GCDs to be set up and due to curse's nature whole combo requires 3-4 GCDs to have a chance to happen. It's not like activating curse automatically will fire frag 3,5 sec later. And when You say "You literally have to be debuffed by Incap to be taking anything more than 13k from Merciless Resolve" that is not a universal truth. The amount of dmg different players on different playstyles will take will vary.

No, my math isn’t missing anything lol. Most magsorcs are sitting at around 65-75% crit dmg. I have 3.7k crit resist, or 55% crit damage mitigation.

I took 7.7k Curse and 9.6k frag, meaning the non crit values would be dealing 10-20% less damage. That’s a 6.1k - 6.9k Curse and 7.6k - 8.6k cFrag. That’s still a 13.7k - 15.5k combo, which is higher than Merciless Resolve’s crit value before Balorgh and Incap debuff lol.

Sorc’s combo is always going to be more lethal against a good player than NB’s combo simply
because half of it is unblockable/undodgable. I’ve already demonstrated that in another comment.

I was talking about crit chance not crit dmg. Once again You did not understood what i wrote yet You decided to respond. it's getting tiresome.

And I said it doesn't matter because even if the Sorc doesn't crit anything, the entire combo still does 13.7-15.5k NON CRIT, which is higher than a CRIT Merciless Resolve before Balorgh + Incap. It's not me that don't understand, it's you lol.

It matters when You start comparing 2 parter vs 2 parter which You don't want to do for obvious reasons.

And no sorc combo will not "always be lethal against good player". It definietly isn't lethal against me in high MMR BGs. Like I said PvP doesn't end with duels. Ask Yourself one simple question, if sorc's combo is so good than why magsorc was considered as mediocre at best before shield buff and his dmg was non existant in real PvP?

StaticWave · June 27

Galeriano2 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

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

Well who would've though that 2 burst abilities combined perfectly into a 1GCD combo can yield more dmagae than 1 burst ability just fired off randomly. Yes curse is unblockable, it kinda has to be to compensate a drawback of being a dead giveaway when the burst attempt will happen. Fact that You need to compare 2 burst abiliites combined perfectly into a combo where both are dealing crit dmg to a 1 burst ability to even try to diminish that second ability just shows how strong that one ability is.

Like always Your math is missing few important informations. You make it to look like this 13-17k merciless have equall chance to accur to sorc's 17k burst combo which is not the case. In both cases You've used crit values but since sorc's combo is a 2 parter it will have lower chance for 2 abilities to crit together in the same combo. For example let's assume sorc have 35% crit chance and nb have 40% crit chance which are pretty standard PvP values for both classes. Since sorc combo is a 2 parter it will have 12% chance to get both critical hits (0,35*0,35) when nb burst with mecriless will have a 40% chance to happen at base and 100% chance to occur if used after cloak. That is a noticable difference in real burst poitential. Overall nb will have more effective burst attempts than sorc. Also since incap have a 0,5 sec cast time it's basically like having ability with 0,5 sec delay which actually allows to perform incap+merciless within 1GCD time window and that 2 parter is hitting way harder than sorc's 2 parter. Nb can also use cloak before incap giving incap a guaratnteed crit and giving his incap+merciless combo 40% chance to deal critical dmg which is over 3x more chance than sorc have. Once again You're making a massive mistake of thinking that whole PvP resolves around duels.

Also what do You mean by "nb has to spend 2 GCDs to set up his burst combo" ? Sorc's curse+frag also require 2 GCDs to be set up and due to curse's nature whole combo requires 3-4 GCDs to have a chance to happen. It's not like activating curse automatically will fire frag 3,5 sec later. And when You say "You literally have to be debuffed by Incap to be taking anything more than 13k from Merciless Resolve" that is not a universal truth. The amount of dmg different players on different playstyles will take will vary.

No, my math isn’t missing anything lol. Most magsorcs are sitting at around 65-75% crit dmg. I have 3.7k crit resist, or 55% crit damage mitigation.

I took 7.7k Curse and 9.6k frag, meaning the non crit values would be dealing 10-20% less damage. That’s a 6.1k - 6.9k Curse and 7.6k - 8.6k cFrag. That’s still a 13.7k - 15.5k combo, which is higher than Merciless Resolve’s crit value before Balorgh and Incap debuff lol.

Sorc’s combo is always going to be more lethal against a good player than NB’s combo simply
because half of it is unblockable/undodgable. I’ve already demonstrated that in another comment.

I was talking about crit chance not crit dmg. Once again You did not understood what i wrote yet You decided to respond. it's getting tiresome.

And I said it doesn't matter because even if the Sorc doesn't crit anything, the entire combo still does 13.7-15.5k NON CRIT, which is higher than a CRIT Merciless Resolve before Balorgh + Incap. It's not me that don't understand, it's you lol.

It matters when You start comparing 2 parter vs 2 parter which You don't want to do for obvious reasons.

And no sorc combo will not "always be lethal against good player". It definietly isn't lethal against me in high MMR BGs. Like I said PvP doesn't end with duels. Ask Yourself one simple question, if sorc's combo is so good than why magsorc was considered as mediocre at best before shield buff and his dmg was non existant in real PvP?

I already compared them. I even said this at the beginning of my comment:

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.

A NB will need to medium weave with Off balance in 1 GCD or Incap into Merciless Resolve to burst someone in 2 GCD. A Sorc is wayy different.

Curse is a true delayed burst and works differently than NB. You simply can't argue as if the Sorc is somehow wasting a GCD not doing damage lol. That 1 GCD is spent to front-load damage into another GCD. Furthermore, Sorc gets 2 ticks of Curses, meaning the 2nd one will not waste a GCD and is actually extra damage. That's why Warden's DPS increased by 10-12k after Deep Fissure got a 2nd burst tick. That extra burst tick allows it to use its spammable, which nets more DPS. A NB does not have that luxury.

Magsorc combo has never been mediocre. Magsorc just didn't get extra stats over the years like a NB did. Give it 10% extra max mag and Ward so it can stack another 8% and it's doing top tier damage. NB's combo remained unchanged for 5 years but it got several damage modifiers and that allowed it to hit people hard with Merciless Resolve. Take away all the modifiers and I can guarantee you Merciless Resolve hits for trash values.

Galeriano2 · June 27

StaticWave wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

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

Well who would've though that 2 burst abilities combined perfectly into a 1GCD combo can yield more dmagae than 1 burst ability just fired off randomly. Yes curse is unblockable, it kinda has to be to compensate a drawback of being a dead giveaway when the burst attempt will happen. Fact that You need to compare 2 burst abiliites combined perfectly into a combo where both are dealing crit dmg to a 1 burst ability to even try to diminish that second ability just shows how strong that one ability is.

Like always Your math is missing few important informations. You make it to look like this 13-17k merciless have equall chance to accur to sorc's 17k burst combo which is not the case. In both cases You've used crit values but since sorc's combo is a 2 parter it will have lower chance for 2 abilities to crit together in the same combo. For example let's assume sorc have 35% crit chance and nb have 40% crit chance which are pretty standard PvP values for both classes. Since sorc combo is a 2 parter it will have 12% chance to get both critical hits (0,35*0,35) when nb burst with mecriless will have a 40% chance to happen at base and 100% chance to occur if used after cloak. That is a noticable difference in real burst poitential. Overall nb will have more effective burst attempts than sorc. Also since incap have a 0,5 sec cast time it's basically like having ability with 0,5 sec delay which actually allows to perform incap+merciless within 1GCD time window and that 2 parter is hitting way harder than sorc's 2 parter. Nb can also use cloak before incap giving incap a guaratnteed crit and giving his incap+merciless combo 40% chance to deal critical dmg which is over 3x more chance than sorc have. Once again You're making a massive mistake of thinking that whole PvP resolves around duels.

Also what do You mean by "nb has to spend 2 GCDs to set up his burst combo" ? Sorc's curse+frag also require 2 GCDs to be set up and due to curse's nature whole combo requires 3-4 GCDs to have a chance to happen. It's not like activating curse automatically will fire frag 3,5 sec later. And when You say "You literally have to be debuffed by Incap to be taking anything more than 13k from Merciless Resolve" that is not a universal truth. The amount of dmg different players on different playstyles will take will vary.

No, my math isn’t missing anything lol. Most magsorcs are sitting at around 65-75% crit dmg. I have 3.7k crit resist, or 55% crit damage mitigation.

I took 7.7k Curse and 9.6k frag, meaning the non crit values would be dealing 10-20% less damage. That’s a 6.1k - 6.9k Curse and 7.6k - 8.6k cFrag. That’s still a 13.7k - 15.5k combo, which is higher than Merciless Resolve’s crit value before Balorgh and Incap debuff lol.

Sorc’s combo is always going to be more lethal against a good player than NB’s combo simply
because half of it is unblockable/undodgable. I’ve already demonstrated that in another comment.

I was talking about crit chance not crit dmg. Once again You did not understood what i wrote yet You decided to respond. it's getting tiresome.

And I said it doesn't matter because even if the Sorc doesn't crit anything, the entire combo still does 13.7-15.5k NON CRIT, which is higher than a CRIT Merciless Resolve before Balorgh + Incap. It's not me that don't understand, it's you lol.

It matters when You start comparing 2 parter vs 2 parter which You don't want to do for obvious reasons.

And no sorc combo will not "always be lethal against good player". It definietly isn't lethal against me in high MMR BGs. Like I said PvP doesn't end with duels. Ask Yourself one simple question, if sorc's combo is so good than why magsorc was considered as mediocre at best before shield buff and his dmg was non existant in real PvP?

I already compared them. I even said this at the beginning of my comment:
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.

A NB will need to medium weave with Off balance in 1 GCD or Incap into Merciless Resolve to burst someone in 2 GCD. A Sorc is wayy different.

Curse is a true delayed burst and works differently than NB. You simply can't argue as if the Sorc is somehow wasting a GCD not doing damage lol. That 1 GCD is spent to front-load damage into another GCD. Furthermore, Sorc gets 2 ticks of Curses, meaning the 2nd one will not waste a GCD and is actually extra damage. That's why Warden's DPS increased by 10-12k after Deep Fissure got a 2nd burst tick. That extra burst tick allows it to use its spammable, which nets more DPS. A NB does not have that luxury.

Magsorc combo has never been mediocre. Magsorc just didn't get extra stats over the years like a NB did. Give it 10% extra max mag and Ward so it can stack another 8% and it's doing top tier damage. NB's combo remained unchanged for 5 years but it got several damage modifiers and that allowed it to hit people hard with Merciless Resolve. Take away all the modifiers and I can guarantee you Merciless Resolve hits for trash values.

No, nb does not need 2 GCD for dmg of incap and merciless to occur. Both damage can happen in less than 1 GCD. It's happening because actuall incap hit does not happen right after GCD starts counting but around 0,5-0,6 sec after so when GCD for next attack drops it happens 0,4-0,5 sec after actuall incap dmg registered. That combined with merciless minimal travel times allows for incap+merciess combo to happen within 0,8-0,9 sec time frame which is less than 1 GCD. Here You can see me hitting incap and mecriless within 0,93 sec which is quite bad actually due to my very mediocre internet connection. It could easily drop to 0,85 sec with better connection.

While sorc can time out frag+curse into more tight combo and even hit both almost at the same time it requires more precision from the player performing said combo which can't be said about nb. Also contrary to nb combo, sorc's combo does not have a stun attached to it so it's usually easier to avoid in BGs or Cyro. Only few magsorcs will be able to actually perform this combo properly while doing everything else properly in the meantime. This is why only small percentile of magsorcs is actually dangerous in real PvP. Not only their combo is highly obvious and telegraphed but they aso can't count on element of suprise that nb have thanks to cloak. Nightblade's adventage also comes with the fact that thanks to way less strict class kit he can make burst combo out of basically every single click due to already mentioned element of suprise combined with proc sets. These adventages will be diminished in duels where nb's cloak is usually firbidden and fact that You know You will be fighting a nb in 5,4,3,2,1 gives You a big adventage. This is why duel results are not representative for whole PvP where nb's are doing really great in dmg departament and shieldspamming sorcs are usually nothing more than just annoyance that takes too long to die.

Yes curse works differently than nb dmg. I never said sorc is wasting a GCD on anything. Nightblade have plenty of luxuries in his kit. Warden DPS didn't increased by 10-12k because ZoS added another tick to deep fissure. Claiming that 1 free ability cast once every few seconds have a potential to increase someone's DPS by 10-12k is really not giving You lot of credibility when it comes to understanding how game works. When that change to deep fissure happened in U35 warden's DPS actually dropped down mainly due to overal DPS nerfs in that infamous patch and it was U36 where warden's DPS went up mainly thanks to changes to glacial presence and piercing cold passives which caused DPS of chilled status effect on warden to go up by 10k+.

Magsorc's combo was mediocre and tbh it still is against everyone who knows some basics about thje game. When it comes to sorc's burst combo it actually hits for less now than it was during magsorc glory days. Main reason nightblade started to hit people hard are additions of new proc sets that are highly beneficial for nightblade and buffs not just to merciless but to majority of nb class kit with some crucial changes that turned the class by 180 degree like the addition of spammable burst heal, increased mobility, AoE doTs no longer working against cloak etc which helped nb to become more agressive since he no longer needs to be so cautious and can survive in fights for longer. This is also one of the reasons why ward change alone increased sorc's dmg potential, it simply allows magsorc player to be more agressive by spending less time in defense. That was magsorc's achilles heel in previous patches. The amount of incoming dmg sometimes even from 1 player was just too great for sorc defense to hold on long enough to allow for succesfull retaliation with dmg. When sorc had to weave inbetween shield, streak and dark deal like crazy he rarely had a time to do dmg to the enemy. Pushing sorc into full defense was just too easy and to be fair even right now it is pretty easy against like 99% of shieldspamming sorcs. Merciless itself really didn't recive that many modifiers. Keep in mind that the series of nb buffs started after ZoS first stripped class out of many old buffs to dmg. The main noticable dmg buff that nb recived was major berserk which is now gone and merciless dmg and nb burst potential barely changed after that.

xylena_lazarow · June 27

Galeriano2 wrote: »

[snip]

I literally cannot read your posts due to poor formatting and grammar. Please at least use paragraphs.

[edited to remove quote]

DrNukenstein · June 27

Galeriano2 wrote: »

[snip]

Here's an argument. Sorc combo is easier and possesses "the element of surprise" because it is ranged. It also does not require an ultimate or 5 stacks of something. If it whiffs you can literally just do it again and again and again because you have like 65k mag.

[edited to remove quote]

Bushido2513 · June 27

DrNukenstein wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

[snip]

Here's an argument. Sorc combo is easier and possesses "the element of surprise" because it is ranged. It also does not require an ultimate or 5 stacks of something. If it whiffs you can literally just do it again and again and again because you have like 65k mag.

Easier is subjective. I've fought nightblades that just have the combo down or just took to the combo in the first place. To them it's easy and to me it's cumbersome. I've seen players that keep up buffs, get the light attacks in, build ultimate, like they were breathing. So easy is relative

In my personal experience I've never really been surprised by a sorc regardless of the combo they use. When a sorc beats me in just realize that they are very comfortable with creating and capitalizing on their particular damage window. They understand how to work around how predictable the combo is to make it harder to defend against.

Any good build and player should be able to repeat their combo over and over whether it's large stat low regen or smaller stat high regen. If you can't repeat your combo over and over it's usually improper build, skill spam, or a preference in playstyle.

[edited to remove quote]

Galeriano2 · June 27

DrNukenstein wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

[snip]

Here's an argument. Sorc combo is easier and possesses "the element of surprise" because it is ranged. It also does not require an ultimate or 5 stacks of something. If it whiffs you can literally just do it again and again and again because you have like 65k mag.

So timing out 2 abilities perfectly is easier than just taping 1 ability or at worst firing 2 abilities in a row? Fact that curse have 3,5 sec delay removes any element of suprise from sorc's combo. We can still talk about potentially high dmg whern combo lands perfectly but element of suprise is non existant in it. After curse is applied to You it's a dead giveaway that 3-4 seconds later sorc will try to burst You giving You plenty of time to prepare. You can't do it against nightblade randomly hitting You with incap or merciless or both combined with procs out of stealth. Curse's design strips any element of suprise from sorc's combo. While sorc's combo does not require stacking light attacks it does require ultimates to actually be dangerous and it also have built in mini game resolving around random frag procs which while not ultra hard to play still doesn't allow to do it "again and again". Very often it will take more time to proc a frag and set up a combo than to throw 5 light attacks and have merciless proc ready to go. In certain occasions it will take more time to properly land curse+frag combo than to charge incap. 65k mag builds are an outlier, they're not as popular and common as some people make them to be. 60k would be more reasonable claim.

[edited to remove quote]

DrNukenstein · June 27

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Any good build and player should be able to repeat their combo over and over whether it's large stat low regen or smaller stat high regen. If you can't repeat your combo over and over it's usually improper build, skill spam, or a preference in playstyle.

I didn't know it's possible to just loop ultimates back to back without gutting every other feature of my build besides ultimate generation or walking around with a pocket simp.

I don't know about the rest of the thread, but I get a little surprised when I'm fighting someone and someone else starts 3rd partying me from across the map whether it is a sorc, bowblade, or any other try-easy ranged gamer. Two ways to do the same easy and annoying thing. Sneak up and go in, or lay back and click on.

StaticWave · June 27

Why are some ppl arguing that a combo that’s 100% blockable is somehow better than combo that’s only 50% blockable.

I have 60% block mitigation. Let’s say for argument’s sake, I limit Curse + cFrag combo to deal the same damage as Merc Resolve. I will then take these damage values:

1) A 13.3k Merc Resolve
2) A 7.7k cFrag and 5.6k Curse (scaled down proportionately from 9.6k cFrag and 7.7k Curse), totaling 13.3k

Apply the 60% block mitigation, I now take 5.3k Merc Resolve. In contrast, I will take 3k cFrag and 5.6k Curse since Curse is unblockable, totaling 8.6k.

8.6k > 5.3k

Even if Curse isn’t critting, it’s still going to do equal or more damage thru block than Merc Resolve, while having the potential to do even more damage when critting.

StaticWave · June 27

The only complaint anybody should make about NB is its tankiness. Even though NB hits like a truck, its combo is fairly easy to counter. Most NBs are rather predictable so it isn’t an issue to deal with them.

Magsorc combo on the other hand, is also predictable, but it’s literally pointless to try countering them. Curse goes thru block and requires a cleanse to remove, which not everyone has access to. It’s like saying Meteor + Javelin is predictable. Of course it is, but unless you have CC immunity, left-hander mythic, a fat shield, or an unblockable CC and your opponent isn’t CC immune, it’s almost impossible to counter that combo. That’s why it’s banned in tournaments.

Magsorc is doing top tier damage this patch and consistently pulling 4k DPS in a long fight against good players. The only other burst class that also outputs high pressure is Warden. NB has no shot competing with Sorc when it comes to DPS, period.

xylena_lazarow · June 27

Oh yeah. Well if Sorc is so overpowered. Then how come I'm still bad??? Checkmate, nightblades.

Bushido2513 · June 27

DrNukenstein wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Any good build and player should be able to repeat their combo over and over whether it's large stat low regen or smaller stat high regen. If you can't repeat your combo over and over it's usually improper build, skill spam, or a preference in playstyle.

I didn't know it's possible to just loop ultimates back to back without gutting every other feature of my build besides ultimate generation or walking around with a pocket simp.

I don't know about the rest of the thread, but I get a little surprised when I'm fighting someone and someone else starts 3rd partying me from across the map whether it is a sorc, bowblade, or any other try-easy ranged gamer. Two ways to do the same easy and annoying thing. Sneak up and go in, or lay back and click on.

Well when I say combo I'm speaking of rotation and more so saying when you work up to an ultimate as part of the rotation/ combo.

I roll solo so basically I always expect someone to come in with an attack or even a few someones. This is why my alert level changes based on proximity to los. When I hear a sound or see a visual queue I take a defensive action. That's basic gameplay but I guess my point is that I've just trained myself to have a defensive response and expect random damage to happen so it's not much of a surprise.

Bushido2513 · June 27

StaticWave wrote: »

Why are some ppl arguing that a combo that’s 100% blockable is somehow better than combo that’s only 50% blockable.

I have 60% block mitigation. Let’s say for argument’s sake, I limit Curse + cFrag combo to deal the same damage as Merc Resolve. I will then take these damage values:

1) A 13.3k Merc Resolve
2) A 7.7k cFrag and 5.6k Curse (scaled down proportionately from 9.6k cFrag and 7.7k Curse), totaling 13.3k

Apply the 60% block mitigation, I now take 5.3k Merc Resolve. In contrast, I will take 3k cFrag and 5.6k Curse since Curse is unblockable, totaling 8.6k.

8.6k > 5.3k

Even if Curse isn’t critting, it’s still going to do equal or more damage thru block than Merc Resolve, while having the potential to do even more damage when critting.

So you're looking at the damage but how long does each of those take to complete?

Also these days with the way the game is built are people better at healing through damage or timing out block. Personally I block some specific things but tend to mitigate others in other ways. I have a little time to mitigate a curse frag in a few ways where I tend to not think too much about blocking bows especially when a player is good at feints.

Just offering perspective but yes some players will mitigate curse with back to back frags and others will block your bow like they are reading your mind. It's just relative

DrNukenstein · June 27

Bushido2513 wrote: »

I roll solo so basically I always expect someone to come in with an attack or even a few someones. This is why my alert level changes based on proximity to los. When I hear a sound or see a visual queue I take a defensive action. That's basic gameplay but I guess my point is that I've just trained myself to have a defensive response and expect random damage to happen so it's not much of a surprise.

I get to play with a friendly player maybe once a month tops if even. I know all about avoiding out numbered situations too. That a sorc may open on me with a curse while I'm fighting someone else is 3rd partying and flipping numbers, just like ganking.

Now, what may shock everyone is I am not a one trick. I mess around with hybrid DK and the gloriously easy modern Mag Sorc as well. The telegraph argument holds no water. You can straight up double barrel-shot gun people with crystal weapon, force pulse and power overload for like a Spec-Bow and half per GCD if you want to. That's stupid and OP. Throw curse and/or bound armaments in and it's straight up oppressive, from range, with 0 risk unless you just stand there and do that until it's too late.

Even the much maligned (and I hate em too) stick or bow blade can't throw that much burst out of nowhere unless their setup is a clown costume made of procs, procs with cooldowns up to 10 seconds.